Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 24 Jun 2004

Vol. 588 No. 1

Adjournment Debate.

Schools Refurbishment.

Mr. P. Breen

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach home from Brussels and I congratulate him on his conquests in Europe with the new constitution. I hope he has good news for me on Rice College in Ennis.

This issue affects the teachers and pupils of Rice College which was the old Christian Brothers' school. Earlier this year, with the Fine Gael spokesperson on Education and Science, Deputy Olwyn Enright, I visited Rice College following a request from the parents' council. During our visit we toured the school, the classrooms and the facilities. We visited the science laboratories and I was taken aback by the outdated facilities which reminded me of something in the 1950s. In my own time in Saint Flannan's college in Ennis, the science labs were much better than what I saw this year in the twenty-first century.

Ennis is an information town and the school does quite well in its junior and leaving certificate examinations. Science subjects need to be taught more often in schools and many students are not taking them up, particularly in the leaving certificate. If the facilities are not there for the students at an early stage, then it is very hard to expect students to stay with these subjects for the duration of their education.

I was astonished to discover that in the event of an emergency such as a fire or an explosion, which can easily take place in a science class, it would be difficult for students and staff to evacuate the building. There was only one door, the windows were located at a high level and there was no fire escape. In this day and age I thought I would never see something like this.

There seems to be an element of confusion between the Department of Education and Science and Rice College on the refurbishment of science facilities. This came to light last month when I raised it in a parliamentary question. It was noted that Rice College made no application for resource grants under the revised syllabus for junior certificate examinations. The board was clear that a science inspector from the Department had told the college that laboratories were quite unfit for conducting the revised junior certificate course. The board was in a no win situation. If it had signed for the grant, it would have to oversee the introduction of the revised syllabus against the advice of the school inspector. The board of management was not prepared to do this. The board is anxious to comply with the Department's instructions and to introduce the new course, but it needs the help and expertise of the Department to bring the laboratory up to standard.

I hope the Minister will intervene and provide the necessary funding and assistance for the pupils who are taking science courses and that this case will be resolved by September.

Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach (Mr. Roche)

I thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to outline to this House the position of the Department of Education and Science in relation to the provision of improved accommodation at Rice College, Ennis, County Clare. I apologise that the Minister for Education and Science is not available.

Grant aid of €3,500 per science laboratory was available to all schools at post primary level to enable them provide the revised science syllabus for the junior certificate examination. In addition, further funding was provided to schools, which did not have major capital investment in their science facilities since 1995. These grants have been paid to all schools which notified the Department that they were opting into the revised syllabus.

As the Deputy has said, Rice College in Ennis made no application for grant aid under this scheme, which is regrettable. All schools that did not apply for funding in 2003 were recently sent a circular, M42 of 2004, advising them of how to apply for funding in 2004 and the closing date for receipt of applications is 29 October this year.

Architectural planning has been completed for a proposed large-scale building project for Rice College and the project is listed in section 8 of the 2004 school building programme published on the Department's website. The project has been assigned a band 2 rating by the Department in accordance with the published criteria for prioritising large-scale projects.

The budget announcement regarding multi-annual capital envelopes will enable the Department of Education and Science to adopt a multi-annual framework for the school building programme, which in turn will give greater clarity regarding projects that are not progressing to tender in this year's programme, including Rice College. The Department will make a further announcement in that regard later this year.

I thank the Deputy once again for affording me the opportunity to address this matter. I have noted the point he made to explain the non-applicaton for the grant assistance and I will ensure that the Minister's attention is drawn to the circumstances in which that happened.

Mr. Gregory

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for giving me time to raise this matter. I have been requested by the parents of school authorities of two national schools in my constituency of Dublin Central to draw attention to what they and I regard as the unacceptable conditions in both schools.

In St. Columba's national school on North Strand Road, the immediate concern is confined to the need to refurbish the toilets, modernised them and make them wheelchair accessible. The school was led to believe that this work would be sanctioned and carried out this summer, but for some reason best known to the Minister's Department, this has not been done and the school seems destined to go another year with toilet conditions that are unacceptable.

The extraordinary thing about this issue is that the cost is in the region of a mere €30,000. Yet this minor grant has been refused for an essential facility at a time when this Government has outraged the general public, as seen in the results of the recent elections, by its scandalous squandering of public funds. I ask the Minister to unravel immediately whatever bureaucratic bungling has gone on in the Department, sanction these works and make this money speedily available to enable that to happen. I would like to hear the reasoning behind any refusal of this essential and basic request from a national school in the very centre of our capital city, which is now hosting the Presidency of the EU. I doubt if European leaders were brought to see these schools.

The second school to which I wish to draw attention is St. Peter's national school in Phibsboro, Dublin 7, in the centre of the city. It is a co-educational school catering for approximately 320 children, many of them coming from very disadvantaged backgrounds. Five years ago I attended meetings of parents and management in the school halls to discuss a request from the Department of Education and Science that the then existing three separate schools on the campus should amalgamate into one co-educational national school in the interests of all concerned. At those meetings, the clear message from the Department was that the school buildings required major redevelopment and that if the amalgamation took place, the Department would be favourably disposed towards providing the funding in the region of €3 million to provide a modern, healthy and safe school environment. That was the main incentive for the parents to do the Department's bidding and establish a co-educational school at St. Peter's.

I argued at those meetings in favour of the co-educational school. Some of the parents were reluctant to give up the advantage of the smaller schools, but they knew that a new school building with modern facilities was urgently needed. The amalgamation went ahead on that basis. Now, five years later, nothing has been sanctioned, and the existing facilities are worse than ever.

According to a school report, the present school premises are completely inadequate for the implementation of the revised curriculum as set down by the Department of Education and Science. The Department fails in its duty to meet the requirements of the safety, health and welfare at work provisions. I cite, for example, the location of a boiler underneath the stairs, no hot water, inadequate sanitary facilities, and the shortage of toilet facilities, totally unsuited to a co-educational school. Classes must queue up outside in the open yard at pre-allocated times to use what when I visited the school I found to be totally Dickensian toilet facilities and a disgrace to this Government.

Grossly overcrowded classrooms are separated by partitions which are not soundproofed. In cold weather, the water freezes — I am not surprised. There is dry rot around the windows, most of which are bolted and cannot be opened because of the danger of their collapsing. They are obviously therefore hazardous to children.

As I have said to the Minister, I have visited both schools recently and met staff, parents and children. What most outrages everyone about the conditions is the scandalous squandering of money by the Government over the past year. In particular, parents pointed to the €60 million wasted unnecessarily on electronic voting machines. People find that incomprehensible. The Minister, Deputy Dempsey, who I accept could not make it here this evening to listen to my description of conditions in schools under his tutelage, talks a great deal of his commitment to rectify educational disadvantage, yet does nothing about the school conditions for those disadvantaged children.

Mr. Roche

I thank Deputy Gregory for raising St. Peter's national school and St. Columba's national school, which I will deal with separately.

St. Peter's national school has a staffing level of a principal and 11 assistants, two learning support, one resource and two language support staff. The school had an enrolment of 314 pupils on 30 September 2003. St. Peter's building project is listed in section 8 of the 2004 building programme, which is published on the Department's website. It is planned to progress the project to advanced architectural planning this year.

I am pleased to inform the Deputy that a full design team has been appointed for St. Peter's national school, and architectural design of the project is progressing. The project is currently at stage 3 of architectural planning, detailed plans and costs. It has been assigned a band 1 rating by the Department in accordance with the published criteria for prioritising large-scale projects.

Indicative time-scales have been included for large-scale projects proceeding to tender in 2004. The budget announcement regarding multi-annual capital envelopes will enable the Minister to adopt a multi-annual framework for the school building programme, which in turn will give greater clarity regarding projects not progressing to tender in this year's programme, including St. Peter's national school. The Department of Education and Science will make a further announcement in that regard later this year.

On the matter of the relatively small-scale works that the Deputy mentioned, there is no record of the Department having receiving an application from the school management authorities under the 2004 summer works scheme.

Mr. Gregory

Perhaps if they——

An Ceann Comhairle

Allow the Minister without interruption.

Mr. Gregory

I have listened.

Mr. Roche

I have no doubt that the Deputy will pass that information on.

Regarding St. Columba's national school, the position is that the scope of the works required at the school is appropriate for consideration under the summer works scheme, which was announced in December last. The closing date for applications under the scheme was 30 January 2004. I note that the school in question did not make an application for improvement works under that scheme.

Subject to a review of the summer works scheme 2004, it is planned to invite applications for the 2005 scheme later this year. Full details will be posted on the Department's website as usual, and it will be open to St. Columba's national school to apply at that stage. In the meantime, individual schools should, as appropriate, use their devolved grant to deal with any urgent health and safety works that may arise at the school.

I once again thank the Deputy. I will pass on to the Minister the points he has raised and draw them to his attention. However, it strikes me that there is something wrong if neither school was involved in the summer works scheme. Perhaps it might be a good idea for the Deputy, who clearly has very good connections with both schools, to bring that to their attention.

Mr. Gregory

It might be——

Mr. Roche

I will pass on his comments, which are always helpful, to the Minister.

Local Authority Regulations.

Mr. Broughan

The Local Government Act 2001 and section 237A of the 2003 regulations are very clear regarding the flow of information and access delivered as of right to Oireachtas Members. Subsection 6(2) of the regulations, for example, states that the relevant documentation for the purposes of sub-article (1) is (a) notice, agenda and minutes of local authority meetings; (b) corporate plan; (c) annual report; (d) local authority budget; (e) draft development plan; (f) development plan; (g) development contribution scheme; (h) weekly list of planning applications; (i) weekly list of planning decisions; (j) draft by-law and (k) by-law.

Several other sections go on to state quite clearly that Oireachtas Members must have the widest possible access to the local administration and all its business. Section 11 provides that a parliamentary representative is entitled to be present without notice at a meeting of a local authority or a committee of that authority, subject, as appropriate, to section 45(3) of the Local Government Act 2001. Throughout my political career I have found the officials of Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council, the two in my constituency, to be very helpful, supportive and accessible. I commend them on their work.

However, I am raising this issue on my own behalf and perhaps also of other Members of this House and Seanad Éireann as I have been unhappy over the past year with my two local authorities and the operation of some of the business of those councils when I have not been kept fully informed of events and documentation. For example, the major business currently before Fingal County Council, as with all others, is the 2005 to 2011 development plan. I made a preliminary submission on behalf of the Dublin North-East Labour Party, followed by a fuller submission.

The key time for the development plan is when it comes back through the manager for the four-week draft plan period and the outgoing councillors have a chance to make fundamental changes. I requested a copy of that draft plan and was refused by the county manager, Mr. Willie Soffe, as was my colleague, Deputy Seán Ryan. That is a clear breach of the Local Government Act 2001 and the regulations which I have just read into the record.

I have never been a member of Fingal County Council, so throughout my political career I have been dependent, when accessing the necessary information for constituents, on the helpful guidance of our officials there. I have been very grateful over the years for the copies of their planning lists, housing lists and other information. However, latterly I have felt that I have not received a full range of documentation and information, particularly regarding area committee reports and some of the major reports that affect the Howth ward of Dublin City Council, which I represent.

By contrast, I was a councillor on Dublin City Council for 12 years until the dual mandate legislation was enacted. I was party leader for the Labour Party for most of that period and I enjoyed a close working relationship with the city manager, Mr. John Fitzgerald, and his predecessor as well as all the officials, who were very helpful to me. Indeed, years before I ever became a councillor or a politician, they were extremely helpful, as I believe they were to all other potential public representatives.

However, since I have stepped down from Dublin City Council — I was forbidden to run, as we all were, in the recent local elections — it is becoming more difficult to access information. One classic example is the establishment of the north fringe development forum, NFDF. This body was set up on my suggestion to invigilate the building of what is effectively a new city on the northern fringe of Dublin city — a city of perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 housing units with massive commercial and other development. It is like a new quarter of Paris or Brussels.

It was my idea to have an invigilation committee. We had three meetings. I thought we were making some progress. The city manager, Mr. Fitzgerald, accepted my proposal. However, yesterday I heard, just by chance, that a meeting had been held of the north fringe forum to which I was not invited. I checked with Deputy Martin Brady. He was not invited either. I believe, on balance, it may have been inadvertent, but if it was deliberate it was an outrage, because that means it was seeking to cut us out of a clearly important area of our democratic mandate.

There have been many other instances. Lord Mayor Royston Brady, for example, opened Raheny bridge during the recent campaign. I heard about that only through party colleagues. That is not acceptable. This was a major local government event in my constituency. Deputy Ring made this case in the House——

An Ceann Comhairle

I would prefer if Members would stay within the time allowed by Standing Orders because it is only fair to other Deputies in the House that they should do so.

Mr. Broughan

I know that. It is important that Oireachtas Members are facilitated in this regard. We have rights. I have given two examples where I do not believe those rights were vindicated. I am asking the Minister of State to ask his colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, to insist. If it does not happen we should come back into this Chamber and have new legislation. I thank the Ceann Comhairle.

Mr. Roche

I thank Deputy Broughan for raising this important issue. Although this is way beyond my portfolio, certainly it is an issue in which I take a deep personal interest. I am aware, in particular, of the statutory provisions which the Deputy has mentioned. I am also aware that the application of those provisions is described — perhaps most benignly — as patchy in a number of quarters. Hopefully, this will improve.

Members of the House will recall that concerns were expressed last year by Oireachtas Members as to their continued interaction with local authorities. It is fundamentally important that such interaction should be vigorous, particularly given the dual mandate legislation. The Minister listened to these concerns and acknowledged that elected representatives of the national Parliament have a justifiable interest on behalf of their constituents in the policies and operations of local government departments and agencies, particularly within their administrative areas.

Given the wide range of local authority activities it is normal that they are, from time to time, approached by Oireachtas Members on policy matters, or in cases of individual constituents. Indeed, it is part and parcel of the essence of politics that we interact in this way. I agree with and fully understand the concerns raised by Deputy Broughan in that regard.

As a result of the concerns voiced by Members of both Houses during the parliamentary debates on the dual mandate legislation, the Minister made regulations, as the Deputy has said, as regards local authorities and their dealings with parliamentary representatives. These regulations provide for the continued supply of documentation, correspondence and proper customer service generally between local authorities and Oireachtas Members. The regulations were brought into operation as soon as the Bill had been enacted.

Members will accept that the Minister acted in good faith in bringing forward the regulations without delay. However, his concern was not just about the provisions of the regulations but that local authorities should co-operate with Members of both Houses of the Oireachtas in the spirit as well as within the letter of the law.

In addition to providing a specified range of documentation to parliamentary representatives, local authorities must also have in place equivalent systems, procedures and timeframes for dealing with correspondence from Oireachtas Members as operate for their own councillors. Deputy Broughan will be particularly interested in that aspect, given the comments he made towards the end of his contribution. Where there are arrangements for electronic access to information by councillors, these are likewise made available. I am confident that these arrangements, together with the very close links between Deputies and their own party councillors, will allow Oireachtas Members to keep their fingers on the pulse, so to speak. It is critically important, as Deputy Broughan has said, that the Members of this and the other House are in a position to keep their fingers on the pulse.

More generally, in line with the terms of Sustaining Progress, local authorities are committed to delivering a quality public service to all their customers and to continued improvement. Their customer action plans set out specific standards, including target response times to correspondence. That of course would apply to Oireachtas Members as well as the general public. Each local authority should keep under review its own systems and procedures with a view to improving standards of service and addressing any deficiencies which may come to light from time to time.

In general the feedback from Oireachtas Members is that the new arrangements have worked satisfactorily, with no notification of wide-scale problems. That is not to say that isolated difficulties cannot arise from time to time. When they do arise they should be addressed and highlighted.

One further point that the Minister and the Department have asked me to reiterate is that the regulations not only provide for communication to Oireachtas Members but also that the manager must arrange a meeting with local Deputies or Senators at least once a year. This was intended as an inbuilt mechanism to keep Oireachtas Members up to date with developments and to present an opportunity for them to raise and address with management any difficulties which might be encountered at local level. This is, of course, additional to normal and regular contacts between local authority officials and public representatives regarding particular problems or issues.

I hope that in operating these arrangements, officials and public representatives — both national and local — will work together in a balanced and reasonable manner and in a spirit of co-operation for effective service delivery for the benefit of the local community. Within this context, the Minister will continue to keep an eye on the overall system as it develops.

I will certainly bring to the Minister's personal attention the comments which Deputy Broughan has made. Like him, as a person who was at one stage a member of a local authority and who continues to take a vigorous interest in council affairs, I am most anxious that the lines of communication which the Minister put in place, as well as the spirit and the letter of the regulations, should be observed by county managers in all local authorities.

The Dáil adjourned at 7.30 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 29 June 2004.