I wish to share my time with Deputies Dan Wallace and Batt O'Keeffe.
Adjournment Debate. - County Cork School.
I am sure that is satisfactory.
I raise this issue on the Adjournment to highlight the need for the Minister for Education to urgently allocate funds to Scoil Triest, Lota, County Cork to ensure that the immediate commencement of work on a new school building can take place.
This co-educational school provides a comprehensive education service to children with special needs. We all owe a great debt of gratitude to the teachers in the school who have performed above and beyond the call of duty in the most trying of conditions. The prefabricated buildings which currently accommodate the children are outdated, too small and far too restrictive. Current accommodation is nothing short of disgraceful. This school should be a priority with the Minister.
Two years ago the Minister for Education met the parents of the children attending the school prior to the Cork by-elections. She gave a solemn promise to the parents that work on a new school building would commence immediately. Since then the Minister has treated the school with contempt. She has refused to provide the funds over the past two years and has engaged in disgraceful delaying tactics. On a recent visit to Cork the Minister refused to meet the parents and the board of management.
The Minister also attempted to create confusion on the issue. In a Dáil reply to a question I tabled on 25 July last the Minister stated that the Department was not consulted prior to the invitation of tenders for the building, which the board of management had initiated. This ignored a letter sent by an official in the primary buildings section of the Department to the chairperson of the board of management on 13 October 1995 informing him "that it had been decided to grant-aid the total project including the excess area" and instructing him to submit tender documents to the Department. On the one hand, therefore, the Department had instructed the board of management to go ahead with the tendering process in October 1995 but the Minister, in response to a parliamentary question last July, gave an opposite view point and claimed that permission was not given.
The board of management and the parents acted in good faith and it was wrong of the Minister to try to malign them and accuse them of not observing proper procedures. Up to now the Minister has claimed she could not allow the project to proceed to tender due to "the current level of financial commitments on the Primary School Capital Programme".
A short while ago, however, I received a faxed communication from the Minister indicating she has now authorised officials in the planning and building unit of the Department to proceed with the tender and contract processes for this project. The letter stated:
Dear Micheál,
I refer to your ongoing representations on behalf of Scoil Triest, Lota, Cork concerning the provision of new accommodation for the school.
You will be pleased to learn that I have now authorised officials in the Planning and Building Unit of my Department to proceed with the tender and contract processes for this project.
I received that communication at approximately 6 o'clock this evening and I have no doubt the hurried nature of it is related to this debate. It is interesting that on 30 August the Minister was not in a position to make this decision as per written correspondence with me. The change of heart is due to the decision by the parents to go public with their campaign. Their picket of the Department of Education's office last Friday has borne fruit. It is to be regretted that parents were forced into such action and that it took such action to provoke a change of heart in the Minister.
While I welcome the Minister's reply to my representations, I would prefer a more specific and definitive statement. I want to know when the funds will be released and when work will commence. I want a definite commitment from the Minister tonight that funds have now been allocated to this project and that work on a new school building will begin shortly. All the preparatory work has been done and the tendering processes have been engaged in with the exception of some aspect of the electrical installation work. We do not want any more excuses. We want positive and immediate action.
Two weeks ago I put down a question to the Minister on this matter and at that stage no money was available. It is quite extraordinary that a letter should be received at 6 o'clock this evening, resulting from my representations, stating that the project can now go to tender. I was asked today to withdraw this Adjournment matter but I refused because two years ago the Minister gave a commitment that funding would be provided for this school. As one parent said to me, "we broke wine on the occasion to celebrate". Unfortunately, there is a great deal of wine on ice in the interim period because of the Minister's inaction. It is extraordinary that these parents, teachers and everybody involved in a school that is not fit to be called a school were forced to march on the Department of Education. As Deputy Martin said, it is extraordinary that there has been a change of heart resulting from this debate tonight.
It is important that we have on the record of the House an absolute commitment from the Minister that money is being provided and that this school will be given the go ahead. I ask the Minister of State to confirm that for the parents, the teachers and particularly the children in this special school.
I thank my colleague, Deputy Martin, for allowing me time to make a brief contribution. Like my colleagues, I was pleased to hear late this evening that permission is to be given for the school to go to tender and that the building is to proceed as quickly as possible.
However, it was sad to see almost 70 parents, young and not so young, walking up and down outside the Department of Education at South Mall, Cork, last Friday morning, to make their well documented case to the Department. There was plenty of correspondence. In 1994 a commitment was given, and there was documentation containing the names of officials in the Department. Even that correspondence was disputed by the Department and the Minister in the interim. We welcome tonight's news, but the parents and their children have been badly treated by the Minister and the Department. If the Minister or officials of the Department had visited Scoil Triest and seen the conditions, they would realise how concerned the parents were. Parents of children attending special schools suffer enough trauma and anxiety, and it is appalling that they had to wait until tonight, that they had to go to the South Mall last Friday, that Deputies from all parties had to repeatedly demand that the Minister act, before anything was done.
I hope the commitment given earlier this evening will be acted on as quickly as possible, that the parents can put behind them all the trauma they have suffered in the interim, and that their school will be built as quickly as possible.
I regret that epithets such as "contempt", "disgraceful", "malign", etc., have been used. Such attitudes do not help. A little generosity would help now and again.
Nevertheless, I am glad the Deputies have given me the opportunity of outlining to the House my Department's current position regarding Scoil Triest, Lota, Glanmire, County Cork. The Minister for Education is aware that the school has a current staffing level of principal and six assistant teachers with an enrolment of 38, and is housed in accommodation provided by the Brothers of Charity. The Minister knows conditions are less than satisfactory.
A building project for the school was included in the capital programme announced by me in 1995. The new school will include six classrooms, a general purpose room and all other necessary ancillary accommodation.
The school engaged its own architect to design the project and the manager invited tenders in January of this year. Having examined the development plans and the tenders in detail, my Department advised the school of the need to make changes. These changes were effected. However, due to contractual commitments at the time, the Minister was not in a position to authorise the project to proceed to contract.
I am pleased to inform the House that the Minister is now in a position to allow this project to progress to contract stage. The school management has been informed of this development and the Department will be in further contact with them shortly.
I assure the House that the project will be progressed as quickly as possible and I am confident that the Minister's announcement will be well received by the pupils, parents, teachers and school management.
The Dáil adjourned at 9.55 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 21 November 1996.