About 1,000 pupils leave Ashbourne, County Meath, each morning to go to school elsewhere, mainly in Dublin city. In 1982, the then Minister for Education, former Deputy John Boland, approved in principle the provision of a secondary school in Ashbourne. One of his successors, former Deputy Gemma Hussey, acquired a site for the school and planning commenced. While one must acknowledge that some progress has been made since 1987, when there was a change of Government, the rate has been very slow. It is important to recognise that early next year it will be ten years since a decision was made in principle that there should be a secondary school in Ashbourne but not one sod has yet been turned.
The up-to-date position is that the bills of quantities have been commissioned by the Department of Education from a private architect. Normally it takes six to eight weeks to complete these documents for a school but in this case, even though they were requested from the architect at the beginning of the year, they have not yet been provided. As a result it has not been possible for the Department of Education to advertise for tenders. There were some suspicions in Ashbourne that the architect had been asked to go slow in providing the bills of quantities while others suspected that the architect found he had more attractive work to do and simply put the request in the bottom drawer of his desk and did not do the work. The people of Ashbourne are not satisfied with the position that work which normally takes six to eight weeks to complete has not yet been completed.
This matter was raised with the Minister for Education in the Dáil on 13 June and, surprisingly, she said in reply that the planning of the proposed new community school in Ashbourne was "proceeding satisfactorily". I do not believe that any Member of the House would be satisfied that it is taking up to six months to prepare the bills of quantities. Indeed, the Ashbourne second level school committee were extremely disappointed that the Minister expressed herself as satisfied with the progress being made in response to questions put to her on 13 June by a number of Deputies, including myself.
The people of Ashbourne and I would like to know, before they make certain decisions on 27 June, whether the Minister is prepared to give a cast iron assurance that work will commence on the school this year, that the bills of quantities will be prepared within the next few weeks and that she will advertise for tenders before the end of July. We believe that this objective is entirely feasible. It is extremely important that work should commence during the summer so that the school can be opened in time for the 1992-93 academic year. Unless the Minister can give a satisfactory and definite answer to these questions the people of Ashbourne will believe that the school is being put on the long finger yet again.
