Deputy Mary Wallace gave me notice of her intention to raise on the Adjournment the matter of Ashbourne second level school and the sanctioning of stage 5 of the building of same. Deputy Wallace has five minutes to present her case and the Minister for Education has five minutes to reply.
Private Members' Business. - Ashbourne (Meath) Proposed Second Level School.
I thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for allowing me to raise this issue, which is very important to the people of Ashbourne and County Meath generally. Ashbourne is the second largest population area in County Meath. This area, which is close to Dublin, is growing and it is very important that a second level school be provided there.
At present there are three primary schools in Ashbourne but the second level students from the town have to attend a school in Dublin. This means these children are removed from their environment and natural community. It also means that they have to undertake the extra activities involved in their education, for example, games, debates, etc., in another area. Naturally, their loyalty is divided between their school and home location.
As has been pointed out in the past, new satellite towns such as Ashbourne lack an integrated social and educational infrastructure. I believe the people of Ashbourne are lucky enough not to have had any serious problems in this regard. However, it was to ensure the provision of such community structures and services and to serve the expanded community that I was elected the local TD for that area. I stood for the Dáil because I believed places like Ashbourne and other areas in County Meath should not be seen as mere adjuncts of Dublin city. Ashbourne and other towns are towns in their own right and as they grow each and every aspect of the community needs to be developed.
Community development, whether at local or national level, is a question of partnership. There has been a longstanding local group in Ashbourne who support the provision of this second level school project. I call it a project because we in Ashbourne know that if it is to succeed there will have to be co-ordination at various levels, community, county council and, most importantly, natural level and, in relation to the school, the Department of Education. Many of the problems which arose in relation to the planning application and access to public lands have been sorted out at council level. I was glad to have been involved in that process.
At national level, I am proud that the Government and, in particular, the Minister for Education, Deputy O'Rourke, have responded in a very positive way to the request for a second level school for Ashbourne. Following my representations, the Minister met the local school committee in 1989 and again earlier this year. The Minister authorised further meetings between the school committee and officials in her Department. All these meetings have proved to be very helpful.
I have been given a mandate by the people of Ashbourne to push this issue. I should like to thank the Minister for Education for acknowledging the need for this school. In the past year-and-a-half considerable progress has been made in regard to the completion of the outline sketch of the scheme, the detailed drawings and specifications. While I am pleased that so much has been achieved, I hope the Minister will be in a position to sanction stage 5 of the school and to authorise the work to commence.
Given the progress made in recent months, I do not want the issue of this school to be reduced to a party political one — I use the word "reduced" advisedly. The argument for this school is obvious, both on educational and demographic grounds — the town of Ashbourne simply needs this school. We have achieved more over the past 18 months than all the huffing and puffing that went on before by people who wanted to make political capital out of this issue and to reduce it to party political slogans and propaganda. Progress has been made in this area as a result of a combination of local initiative, representations made to the Minister for Education and, most importantly, the support we have received from her. We will continue to provide the best for the people of Ashbourne at all levels. It is in this context that I now ask the Minister to approve stage five of the school and to authorise the work to commence.
I should like to thank Deputy Wallace for raising this matter on the Adjournment. The Adjournment Debate can be used by Members on all sides of the House to very good intent. It gives Members a chance to raise what are local issues but issues which can be translated into national issues also so that they can be debated in the House in a non-combative and progressive way.
I always associate Deputy Wallace with this school because since I took up office she, both as a Senator and a Deputy, has been very much abreast of developments in this regard. As the Deputy rightly said, there have been some hiccups along the way. As those of us in the House know, it is much easier to proceed with the provision of a national school which contains two, four, six or eight rooms than with a second level school project which can give rise to problems, for example, in regard to money, site plans, the acquisition of land, planning permission and the possibility of encroaching on other people's preserves and territories. All these problems need to be ironed out but this is not always evident to the correctly impatient parent or community person involved in a project who sees the possibilities of each step being delayed or obviated in one way or another. As Deputy Wallace has said, the revised stage 3 sketch scheme proposals were approved by my Department a few months ago and the design team pressed ahead with the preparation of the fourth and detailed stage.
About 12 months or so ago the cross-party delegation came to see me to present their case as one of urgency which I duly took on board; yet the deputation were fully aware of the hurdles which had to be overcome before we could proceed to the various stages of design. I am very pleased to be in a position to report to Deputy Wallace and the wider community in Ashbourne that the technical examination of the stage 4 plans has recently been completed in my Department and I will immediately instruct my Department to request the design team for the project to prepare the next stage, that is stage 5, the bill of quantities. That is one of the last major hurdles to be faced.
Having seen all the young primary children pouring out on to the street from their primary schools and having noticed the many houses which have been built there, I believe Ashbourne is a town which has been developed in an imaginative way on a green field site in a lovely environment and hinterland. The community want the best education for their children rather than have them board buses to go to schools in neighbouring parts of County Meath or County Dublin. I am aware that the majority of these receive excellent education, but this town deserves a decent and proper second level school. This development on a green field site will be unique in that it will not represent a combination of a vocational and secondary schools resulting from demographic changes, the usual community school or college, but springs right up from the needs of the people. Ashbourne Community School as of tomorrow will proceed to stage five and I have no doubt that I will be back here again responding to questions from Deputy Mary "Ashbourne" Wallace.