Those two acres are the property of Carlow County Council. This site is being used as a playground and an open space, which we all agree with, in a housing estate known as Páirc Mhuire. Four years ago or more we wanted to extend the existing vocational school and build on two or three rooms. We required half an acre and the county council in consultation with the vocational education committee said: "We will give you half an acre but the Páirc Mhuire Tenants' Association said you must give us an undertaking that you will not sell any further portion of that site." That is a guarantee given by the vocational education committee of which I am a member, a guarantee given by the county council of which I am a member, and a guarantee which Carlow County Council and the vocational education committee will stand over.
Last Tuesday, in reply to Deputy Wilson, the Minister said:
This, indeed, may be so but the net question is can I, as Minister for Education, preside over the abolition of £150,000 worth of a vocational school building?
Deputy Wilson said the figure was £75,000 and the Minister said it was £150,000. I have a letter from the chief executive officer of the vocational education committee. It is dated 22nd April, 1975. This includes the original building and the extension. It states that in round figures costs are as follows: Buildings including architects' fees and consultants' fees and expenses, £67,000; furniture and equipment, £8,500; total, £75,500. Therefore, Deputy Wilson's figure is correct and not the Minister's.
The Minister might like to know what the vocational teachers and the religious orders think and what the people of the town think. It is important to put this on the record. It was resolved at a meeting of the vocational teachers that a majority were in favour of a community school for the area on educational grounds and that the buildings and all other facilities for a community school should be on one self-contained site of a minimum of 15 acres. The religious teachers met and said they were in favour of a community school on educational grounds and that it was their professional opinion that the proposed site was unwise and the new school must be erected on a minimum of 15 acres. They said that the emphasis by the Department on the cost difference between building a new school on its own site and extending the present vocational school with a new structure was grossly exaggerated. The exaggeration there refers to the Minister's £150,000. I have confirmed Deputy Wilson's figure of £75,000 from the records of the Carlow Vocational Education Committee.
It may be no harm to put on the record the decision of the people of Muine Bheag at the last public meeting they held. It was held in Muine Bheag on 21st April, 1975. It reads:
The people of Bagenalstown have not changed their opinions with regard to the siting of the proposed community school, namely, as a people they refused to allow the school to be built on the Páirc Mhuire site for the following reasons:
(a) A site of some four acres to accommodate and facilitate the teachers and pupils of 800 enrolment with a possible number of 1,000 or 1,200 pupils in the foreseeable future, is an insult to the intelligence of parents, pupils and teachers.
(b) Such a site would deprive the residents of Páirc Mhuire of the green belt for that housing area and consequently of the life belt of their children at a very tender age, that is, primary school level.
(c) There would be no space left for future expansion of buildings and the school registers of Bagenalstown and its catchment area pre-suppose such an expansion.
2. The people reject unanimously the two proposals of the Minister as stated in his letters to Deputies Governey, Nolan and Pattison namely; that the community school should be built on Páirc Mhuire site or that at some point in time the Minister would consider a dual secondary school for Bagenalstown under the following conditions— that the local community buy the site and furniture and pay 30 per cent of the building cost.
Thank you very much, Minister. Where are the people of Bagenalstown going to get such money? The Minister can get the total amount of money from the World Bank to build a new community school on an ideal site available in the town.
The document goes on:
3. That the Minister's duty for a democratic people is to come in person and see the impossible conditions under which pupils and teachers are working, then, being convinced of the injustice of the situation, that he takes a Ministerial, political, decision on the situation, overrides the ludicrous proposals of his Department officials and gives the people, pupils and teachers their basic rights of reasonable working conditions and facilities.
4. The people point out to the Minister that Mr. Ó Cearbhaill who represented him at the first meeting regarding the school last October and immediately after it, authorised the purchase of a £12,000 swamp as a playfield to cajole the residents of Páirc Mhuire, must now bear the consequences of his folly, face the fire and ire of Government auditors on public spending and be made to realise that the people of Bagenalstown will not be the pawns of Departmental lunacy.
5. It is the professional opinion of the post-primary teachers of the town and catchment area that the proposed site is absolutely unsuitable from every educational point of view. They believe it is the right and duty of the parents, as parents, to object unanimously to the siting of the school in Páirc Mhuire. To accept the school there would be an insult to ordinary common sense and a violation of the rights of pupils to a well-rounded and social development as an intrinsic part of their education.
6. The people have unanimously resolved to picket the Minister henceforth at all his public appearances until they get the community school on the proper site and without delay.
7. The people will use the media and all other sources of publicity to highlight the tyranny and contempt of the Department of Education with regard to parents, pupils and teachers.
Those resolutions were passed at the meeting I referred to. The people in that town are reasonable but if they are forced to picket the Minister they will do so. The Minister should visit the town privately to see for himself the stupidity of the decision as to where this school should be sited.
The Deputies for the constituency, the county councillors, the town commissioners, parents and teachers will not stand for this. The Minister should realise that he only holds this office for the time being. He should also remember that the officials will not be in that Department forever but the future of the area mentioned is in question. I do not want to see 1,000 or 1,200 pupils going like the Charge of the Light Brigade moving from the proposed site through the housing scheme, over garden walls to a field which has been referred to as a swamp. If my colleague from the constituency, Deputy Governey, wishes I will permit him to make a contribution in my remaining four minutes.
