This is an issue in which you, Acting Chairman, may have an interest given the boundary changes announced last week. St. Michael's CBS, Inchicore, is my former school. I am ashamed to say that it is the only school in the Dublin Central constituency which still has outside toilets. It is a matter of shame that any school should still use outside toilets at the end of the millennium. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell the House that funds are being provided immediately to ensure that a modern inside toilet block will be built and in use by the end of next year.
We have talked recently about millennium projects and rightly so. One such project should be the provision of basic facilities in homes and schools as we enter the next century. There are 1,400 houses which still have outside toilets. There are also schools with outside toilets and this is totally unacceptable.
This school is in the middle of Inchicore where I was born and reared. Inchicore is an old area with great traditions. However, to use the French phrase, Inchicore is a quartier en crise— it is in crisis. Major steps have been taken to improve it. The closing of St. Michael's estate is imminent. I hope the Minister for the Environment and Local Government will accept my proposal for the designation of the village for urban renewal status when he comes to make those decisions in August. I also hope the recent protocol from the Minister for Health and Children will reduce the number of drug addicts receiving methadone at the local chemist shop which is the capital of methadone dispensing in this country. Other things should happen such as the provision of indoor toilets at this school.
This is an historic school. It is on a site provided at the request of W.T. Cosgrave. The land was owned by his distinguished father-in-law, the late Alderman "The Bird" Flanagan. W.T. Cosgrave is buried in Goldenbridge cemetery next door to the school. What is now the school gymnasium is where the defeated men of 1916 were held overnight pending their dispatch to Kilmaiham and other jails. People such as Michael Collins, Eamon de Valera, Arthur Griffith, W.T. Cosgrave and many more were held in the gymnasium. It has a long tradition but it is shocking that the school still has outside toilets 40 years after I left. I hope the Minister will bring this scandal to an immediate end.
