Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 8 Dec 2022

Vol. 1030 No. 7

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate

Library Projects

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

I thank the Minister of State for coming in. Carlow library has tremendous and ambitious plans, plans that are hugely curtailed because of funding. Carlow library is housed in Carlow's old Presentation school building. The regeneration project which is in the capital four stage approved process received stage three approval in August 2022, having met and adequately responded to all the Department of Rural and Community Development's queries and recommendations. The project is now shovel-ready and stage four of the approval process is construction and subject to funding. The project is ready to go to tender. As usual, the reason I am raising this matter is to find out where we are at with that funding. My understanding is that there has been a commitment that they will receive the funding.

The Presentation school building houses the main branch library, county archives and the county museum, Carlow tourist office, the county heritage services and, when finished, will also host the county council's arts service. The building is in every sense a cultural and learning hub for the community. The Presentation school buildings are at the centre of the public realm in Carlow town and represents the main linkage from Tullow Street to the cultural quarter, which includes Carlow Cathedral, Carlow College and VISUAL. It is in all senses at the heart of the county capital.

With two third level institutions, including the new South East Technological University, of which we are very proud, we are delighted to say that we now have thousands of students coming to Carlow. A quality public library with adequate study facilities, technological infrastructure and space to house the library collections is essential.

To meet the requirements of the upcoming new national library strategy, Carlow will require a state-of-the-art facility to adequately deliver on its recommendations. The case is that the existing library footprint is no longer adequate for the population it services. It is way too small. The project's overall size of the new library and archive services is about 1,000 sq. m. It is not really accessible. The most recent quantity surveyor's report costed the project at €12.1 million with €1.7 billion allocated to protect the existing building. I urge the Minister of State to consider these points and support Carlow's bid for a new extension to the library building. What is the status of this project with the Department of Rural and Community Development?

I know many libraries have been built around the country. I understand that one is nearly ready to open and the nearest neighbouring town, Portlaoise. It has made considerable progress. We in Carlow are ready to go. Because Carlow is now honoured to be a university town, we need the library. We need new facilities because we need to ensure that we look after the people who want to use it. At the moment it is way too small is not really suitable for our needs.

Minister of State at the Department of Rural and Community Development (Deputy Joe O'Brien)

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of Carlow town library. I am taking this question on behalf of my colleague the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Humphreys.

While the provision of library services, including the provision of buildings, is primarily a matter for local authorities in their capacity as library authorities under the Local Government Act 2001, the Department of Rural and Community Development has overall policy responsibility for the provision of public library services in Ireland and is responsible for the development of public library strategies. Additionally, that Department provides grant funding to library authorities on an annual basis including funding towards the costs of new and refurbished libraries, under the libraries capital programme.

Carlow County Council submitted an application to the Department in August 2020 for funding for the redevelopment of the Presentation buildings to include a new public library, culture, civic and learning space. The Department's libraries capital programme was fully allocated at that time and Carlow County Council was advised to consider making an application for funding under the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, which is administered by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

Carlow County Council was also requested to simultaneously progress the project through the Department of Rural and Community Development's four-stage capital management process. This is standard practice for all new library projects, irrespective of their source funding and including URDF-funded library projects, to ensure that they are technically assessed and comply with the public spending code and the capital works management framework as well as meeting the current benchmarks and standards for public libraries.

The Department of Rural and Community Development has been liaising with Carlow County Council in progressing the Presentation building regeneration project through the four-stage capital management process. The Department issued a stage 3 approval letter on 17 August 2022 that authorises the council to proceed to tender. The letter also advised the council to ensure that funding had been confirmed for the project in advance of proceeding to tender.

The Department has been engaging with the council, but it is a matter for the council to source the funding. Unfortunately, it is not possible at this stage to make any commitment on the next library capital programme. We do not have confirmation of the direction of travel on that programme quite yet, but we hope to have it soon.

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

I express my disappointment. It is unacceptable. We were told to approach the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage under the URDF which I did. At meetings with that Department's officials, I was told that this project does not fall under their Department. This is passing the buck from one Department to another and is unacceptable. Carlow County Council needs a commitment for this particular building. The fact that no one knows where the money is coming from is a major issue. I can only express my absolute disappointment today with the Minister of State's answer. For months and months, I have been told to go to the Department of Rural and Community Development and then the other Department. Today I am none the wiser as to which Department has responsibility for the library. I ask the Minister of State to go back to the Minister, Deputy Humphreys. I have spoken to the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, on several occasions and have been told it is not his Department. I ask the Minister of State to confirm to me in writing the funding structure and which Department the library falls under.

Deputy Joe O'Brien

The Deputy has made a good case for the works needed in Carlow library. Responsibility for the capital works for libraries does not necessarily fall under one particular Department. As I said earlier, local authorities are the primary body with responsibility for them. The libraries capital programme was fully allocated when Carlow County Council applied. The current programme concludes this year and preparatory works will shortly commence on a successor programme for the following five-year period. There is a decision to be made on that and I cannot share with the Deputy much more information than I have been given on that. We will prepare another capital programme. I believe the referral to the URDF was made in good faith but, understandably, the URDF has refocused its work on housing.

Disability Services

Deputy Chris Andrews

I apologise for being late; I was at a Zoom meeting. I thank the Minister of State for his patience. Life is hard enough for children with disabilities. Families with children who have disabilities are already creaking under the pressure. As the Minister of State will know, waiting lists for children are growing at an unprecedented rate. More than 18,000 children are now on the waiting list for initial contact with the children's disability network team, CDNT. According to the latest data available up to the end of September, 18,473 children are on these waiting lists, an increase of more than 1,000 from the end of May. That is a shocking increase of 6% in only four months. If this trend continues, waiting this could rise by more than 15% in a year which is an enormous toll to put on any children with a disability and their families. These waiting lists are longest in Dublin in community healthcare organisation, CHO, 9 and CHO 7. In CHO 9, I understand 2,295 children have been waiting for more than a year for initial contact with the disability network team. In CHO 7, 1,323 children have been waiting more than 12 months for their initial contact. In total, 2,991 children are on this waiting list in CHO 9 which covers north Dublin and a devastating 77% of those children have been waiting more than a year for contact with their team. That is simply not acceptable and I know the Minister of State will not try to defend it. He knows as well as I do that that is unacceptable and must change. There must be an invention. By comparison in CHO 7, 2,456 children are waiting for contact, meaning that 54% of children have been waiting for more than a year in CHO 7. That sounds good in comparison to CHO 9, but it is not.

It is devastating for the children and their families that they are waiting for so long. The CDNTs are supposed to help families and children navigate their way through the health system but it does not seem to be working in many cases I know of a young lad Seán who has autism. He is from Ringsend and was going to school outside the area in Blackrock. He ended up having to go to a primary healthcare clinic for dental work.

The confusion and lack of services for him was just ridiculous. It should not matter where a child goes to school. He is only going to school in Blackrock because there is not a school locally for him and for children with his disability. There are very long waiting times and there is a very significant problem in community healthcare organisation, CHO, 4 and CHO 8, which cover the midlands, Cork and Kerry. Half or more of the children on the lists in these counties are waiting more than a year. Will the Minister of State give these families and these children any hope or light at the end of the tunnel?

Minister of State at the Department of Health (Deputy Frankie Feighan)

I thank Deputy Andrews for raising this important issue.

The Government is fully committed to the development and enhancement of children's disability services through the implementation of the Progressing Disability Services for Children and Young People or PDS programme. I fully acknowledge this change programme has been challenging for many stakeholders, in particular, for children and young people using the service as well as for their families. These challenges have resulted in unacceptably long delays for families to access much-needed therapies for their children. The Minister of State with responsibility for disabilities would like me to take this opportunity to reiterate on her behalf her sincerest apologies to any family experiencing such delays.

Prior to the introduction of the PDS programme, children in different parts of the country with the same needs got varying levels of service based on geography rather than need. This was clearly unfair and needed to change. The core principle of PDS is to achieve fairer and more equitable access to services for all children with disabilities based on their needs and not where they happen to live.

As the Minister of State with responsibility for disabilities has said in this House, the reconfiguration of children's disability network teams, CDNTs, by the HSE has faced challenges, particularly relating to the recruitment and retention of staff. There is currently an average vacancy rate of 28% across the 91 CDNTs, which equates to approximately 524 vacancies out of a total allocation of 1,892 whole time equivalent staff. Notwithstanding these challenges, it is important to acknowledge the significant work involved in establishing the CDNTs and the services that are being delivered. Approximately 35,000 children are currently receiving services and supports provided by these teams.

Having said that, we must acknowledge there are waiting lists and there is much more work to do. In this regard, funding has been provided to the HSE for additional posts in recent years to strengthen the capacity of children's disability network teams to ensure services can be provided. This funding provides for in excess of 600 additional whole time equivalent posts for children's teams. It is evident the vacancies in the teams are not due to a lack of resources but due to the scarcities that exist in the health and social care sector for specialist therapy professionals.

I assure the House that the HSE continues to pursue a range of options to enhance the recruitment and retention of essential staff across all aspects of the health services, such as targeted national and international recruitment for CDNTs, the inclusion of an agreed relocation allowance where appropriate, the provision of both apprentice and sponsorship programmes for therapy grades, the employment of graduates as therapy assistants as they await CORU registration, and the expansion of therapy assistants in the system with the HSE supporting individuals to return to education to qualify as therapists.

I trust this clarifies the issue raised by the Deputy about Seán in Ringsend who suffers from autism, and I will bring the Deputy's views back to the Minister of State as soon as possible.

Deputy Chris Andrews

I acknowledge the commitment of the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, to children with disabilities. There is no questioning that because she put in a great amount of work. She is very committed and is trying and working very hard to unpick or disentangle the mess that applies to her brief. This is not about lack of will from the Minister of State.

The Government very much needs to step up to the plate and to invest in resources. The measures mentioned by the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, need to be fast-tracked to ensure the vacancies are filled. Some 20% of all posts are vacant. That equates to 450,000 lost therapy hours a year. That is massive for families who are struggling to manage, support and care for their children.

The figures and data I outlined earlier relate to waiting lists for initial contact. We do not have data for those waiting for other appointments because of ICT deficits. That is something we must strongly challenge. As the Minister of State knows himself, families are struggling and life for children with autism and various disabilities is very difficult. When they go to particular schools, often they are bussed out to their school because there is not a local school for children with autism. This is something in which we, as a society, have failed. We have failed children with autism and we must stand up for children with disabilities and with autism.

Deputy Frankie Feighan

I thank the Deputy again for his contribution and concern in this very important matter. I assure the House that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, will continue to engage with the HSE to fill the vacant posts and to drive them towards the levels required. Most of the disciplines working in the CDNTs are similar to those working in other areas of the health and social care sector, both public and private.

In this context, the HSE disability services continue to experience ongoing challenges in recruiting and retaining staff across all the disciplines and grades on their children's network teams. A comprehensive PDS national team development programme has been provided for network managers and has been circulated to all team members. This programme, which was designed to support the establishment of the new CDNTs and to support implementation of the new model of service, will also support staff retention.

Both the HSE and the Department acknowledge that while many children with disabilities and their families are accessing services, too many families are reporting an unsatisfactory experience. Some families are experiencing long waiting lists and others report varying degrees of consistency in the services they are receiving. We understand and recognise the distress this causes and I can assure the House that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, will continue to work tirelessly with the HSE to find long-term solutions to the staffing issues which, when improved, will ensure children and young people with complex needs will be able to access the services that are vital for their development.

The Deputy has mentioned fast-tracking the services and I restate I will bring his views back to the Minister of State. I thank Deputy Andrews again, however, for raising this very important matter. I also agree with him that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is doing everything she can to address this very difficult situation.

Community Employment Schemes

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

This question is to discuss the employment-related issues concerning community employment, CE, schemes supervisors and assistant supervisors. There is an issue around pensions also and there are a range of issues which have cropped up over the years that have never been fully addressed. One of the main ones is that most CE supervisors' jobs are benchmarked in the wrong way and it is not a proper recognition of the qualifications that are required, the activities they are forced to undertake and the job specification.

I have a copy of the job specification here, which I believe it is slightly out of date. Very few job specifications, however, would have so many parts of it outlined with such specific requirements. I am surprised, therefore, that they manage to get anybody through the process of becoming a supervisor on that basis because they are expected to do so much. That may perhaps be because the CE supervisor is a role which captures quite a good deal, given the CE programme itself does so much. I am not criticising the scheme; that is a debate for another day. There is the need to repurpose it and, in some ways, to get the Department of Social Protection separated from it, because there is too much concentration on job progression and not on community support.

However, as I said, that is a different debate. Today's debate is about the supervisors themselves and the fact that they have had very limited, if any, increases in pay. They are dependent on the Government to set the rates of pay and to issue the funding through the Department of Social Protection to the sponsor organisation. Basically, the Government or the Department is the shadow employer, but we cannot negotiate with a shadow employer, as we would do otherwise. That is why the supervisors rely on me and sometimes the unions to go into the Labour Court. The problem is that they should not have to do that. There should be some type of negotiations to look after supervisors, some of whom are 20 years in the job, who are at the highest point of the increment scale. The scale has only four points and then a person is stuck, which makes supervisors feel devalued. An additional focus and workload is put on them. Those who are coming in at that level are now required to have a Bachelor of Arts degree or level 7 equivalent. Unlike in the past, there is no recognition of a change from a level 6 to level 7. There was not an increase in pay or recognition for that. Neither was there an increase for the additional work in terms of the bureaucratic work that is now associated with the job, albeit on computers. However, in the past supervisors did not have to fill out as many forms by hand.

A range of issues is associated with the fact that the job of a community employment supervisor is not permanent. If the number of participants in a scheme drops, which has happened in places around the country, it means the job of a supervisor can be endangered and there is no guarantee that he or she would be employed on an adjacent scheme, which could also be going through the same problem, or that there would be some other work available and the person will then be back on the scrapheap looking for another position as a supervisor or for something else.

Minister of State at the Department of Social Protection (Deputy Joe O'Brien)

I acknowledge the work done by the more than 840 community employment schemes nationwide. CE provides vital services to local communities in areas such as the delivery of meals to older people, assisting in childcare provision and environmental work and in keeping towns and villages across the country maintained and looking well.

There are more than 20,000 places available on CE, with a budget of more than €375 million in 2022 and 1,230 people are employed by schemes as supervisors and assistant supervisors. The Department of Social Protection funds CE through the provision of grant funding to sponsor organisations that run schemes. The Department is not the employer of supervisors; they are employees of individual sponsor organisations.

I am, of course, aware of ongoing employment-related issues for CE workers. The first relates to an ex gratia payment to CE supervisors on their retirement. I am pleased to say this issue has been resolved, with a settlement reached with unions. The first group of ex gratia applications are with the Department. These relate to persons who retired since 2008. In total, 630 completed applications have been received. The processing of payments is under way in respect of these claims, with payments starting to issue from this week. I expect all of the first batch to be issued before Christmas.

In relation to pay rates for CE workers, the Department, as the funder of CE schemes, received correspondence earlier this year from Fórsa and SIPTU seeking a pay increase. Fórsa and SIPTU referred this pay claim to the conciliation service of the Workplace Relations Commission. The WRC has issued an invitation to the Department to take part in a conciliation process.

Any increase in pay rates that could potentially increase the overall cost to the State of funding schemes must take into consideration the potential cost to the Exchequer. The Department has been in ongoing contact with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on this issue, given the potential cost and the knock-on effect it would have on the increased grant funding required to run schemes. Both the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and I fully agree that there must be a process in place to deal with this pay claim. I am aware that the WRC process was used in the past to look at pay claims in the State-funded community and voluntary sector. However, the Department can only participate in this process on the strict understanding that this is in its role as funder of the schemes. We are of the view that the WRC conciliation process could be very useful in identifying a solution to this specific issue.

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

It is quite clear that the State is trying to hide behind the shadow-employer aspect of the role it plays in the WRC process. The State sets the payscales and benchmarks. No CE scheme is allowed to set the pay scale for a supervisor. Any scheme that increases the funding for a supervisor is punished, as the Department of Social Protection reduces the materials grant available for the scheme. Given the job of a supervisor, it is vital that this job and the job of an assistant supervisor is benchmarked in a different way; one they deserve. Anybody around the country who has enjoyed the services of those who work in CE schemes will attest to that.

Supervisors act as counsellors, psychologists, confidantes, trainers, mentors, managers and administrators. The role is a significant one. There was no recognition of it, but during Covid, meals-on-wheels services continued to operate. The drugs project that I am involved in, Liberty Recycling, empties clothing banks around the country. The participants on the CE scheme were in attendance and were looked after all through Covid. There was no additional recognition for that work. As the Minister of State mentioned, every community benefits from the schemes. The only people who do not seem to benefit from a greater recognition of their role in servicing our communities are supervisors and assistant supervisors. We must be real on this and look at benchmarking them against a higher grade than clerical officers within the Civil Service. My suggestion is to benchmark them against training workshop managers or equivalent because, in many cases, supervisors deal with people who have a lot of issues and they must try to help them back to employment or to complete their years of employment while supporting the community.

Deputy Joe O'Brien

I will take the Deputy's suggestions on board in terms of the variety of tasks required of CE supervisors and assistant supervisors. It is a difficult job.

We are not hiding behind a shadow-employer status. I am very much upfront in saying that the Department of Social Protection is the main funder of CE schemes and, accordingly, we need to respond to the claims of supervisors. In recent weeks and months, I have been very much trying to move things along. I am hopeful that we will make significant progress in the coming weeks. As I stated earlier today in the Chamber in response to a similar question, we need the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to back us now. As a Department, we are willing to go in to the WRC and to make an offer, but we cannot do that without the sanction of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and I very much want to do that. We will keep pushing. We must look after CE supervisors and assistant supervisors, who do amazing work and we should reward them for it.

School Accommodation

Deputy James Lawless

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, for taking this Topical Issue. My question relates to the availability of school places in north Kildare. As the Minister of State is aware, north Kildare is in the heart of the commuter belt and has a growing population. As always, there are growing pains. This is not new, but it does remind me of the early noughties when we had this situation before in 2005. Some 20 years later, I had hoped it would not recur, but unfortunately it has.

If I look around my constituency, I will start with Naas Community College, where I was chair of the board for the past five years, where the principal, Ciarán Keegan, does his level best to accommodate as many students as he can, but he has to turn people away. In Maynooth there are two new buildings, Maynooth Post-Primary School and Maynooth Community College, which were both built on the Moyglare Road in recent years. The project involves two brand-new schools side by side.

Their construction is possibly the largest investment in education at second level that the State has ever made. They only opened a couple of years ago, yet they are already oversubscribed.

A new school is awaited in Prosperous. It has not opened yet but it is due to be constructed. Three schools are coming together in Celbridge, which is a project that I have championed. There have been multiple school investments around the constituency, which I welcome. However, my concern is that, even with these projects, we will still be far behind the supply of school places we need.

My office and I have been inundated in recent weeks with parents crying out for help and saying they cannot get places in Naas, Maynooth, Kilcock or Clane and asking me about what can be done to help them. One of the actions I hope we can take is to plan ahead. Will the Minister of State advise on what the forward planning unit in the Department of Education is doing in this regard? Many parents have contacted me. The town of Clane, for example, has one secondary school and a couple of primary schools, with a few more in the hinterland. Thankfully, there has not been an issue to date. This year, though, there were 330 applications for the 210 places available, meaning that 120 people were left waiting. This came as a shock to parents because they had never experienced it before, but it should not have come as a shock to the Department of Education, which has access to primary school numbers, Central Statistics Office, CSO, census figures and other demographic metrics. As a result, I would have expected the Department to have been in a position to acknowledge, anticipate and respond to demand.

I have mentioned two brand new schools in Maynooth. Enrolment for first year in Maynooth Post-Primary School is 170 students and enrolment in Maynooth Community College, which is located next door, is 170, totalling 340 places. However, there are still 80 children waiting per school, totalling 160 at least. I do not have the exact figures for Naas, but Naas Community College, Naas CBS, St. Mary's College, Gael-Choláiste Chill Dara and Piper's Hill College are heavily oversubscribed. This is not a new situation for Naas, having lasted for several years. I get calls at this time every year about a lack of places, with parents saying that their children are way down the list in 120th, 150th or 180th place. When children are put on a list, they are sometimes subscribed to multiple schools and lists thin out as it gets closer to September, but parents suffer considerable anxiety while waiting to see whether the lists are oversubscribed or whether there are duplicate applicants. As information comes out, students or families make up their minds and choose places or the schools choose them, but this does not always happen and, unfortunately, some pupils are left behind. That is no comfort to those waiting anxiously at this time every year, though. The problem is predictable.

Kilcock has the same issue. Scoil Dara still has a waiting list of 77 students after the second round offers were made and the schools attempted to whittle down the number.

I have given a cross-section of entirely predictable issues in Clane, Naas, Kilcock, Maynooth, Leixlip and Celbridge. There are large growth plans for all of these areas. We need to build houses and expand the population's accommodation, which the Government is doing through Housing for All, but we must keep pace. We were in this situation before in the 2000s, so it is disappointing that we are in it again now. I hope that the Government has a plan to address it.

I thank the Minister of State and look forward to his response.

Minister of State at the Department of Finance (Deputy Sean Fleming)

I am taking this Topical Issue debate on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, who is otherwise engaged.

I thank Deputy Lawless for raising this matter. As he pointed out, the population of Kildare, and north Kildare in particular, has been growing for a number of years. He has been a strong advocate for the provision of services for the increasing population, be those commuter services, schools or additional Garda stations. He is working on all of these because they are having to catch up with the growing population. I acknowledge his consistent work in this regard.

On the matter of post-primary school places in north Kildare from September 2023 onwards, the Deputy will be aware of most of the issues affecting his constituency of Kildare North from his close involvement with schools' boards of management. For school planning purposes, the Department of Education divides the country into 314 planning areas and uses a geographical information system to anticipate school place demand. Information from a range of sources, including child benefit data, school enrolment data and residential development activity, is used for this purpose. Additionally, Project Ireland 2040's population and housing targets inform the Department's projections of school place requirements.

Having considered the projected requirements in each school planning area, the Department makes an assessment of the existing capacity within that particular area and its ability to meet any increased demand. Where data indicate that additional provision is required at primary or post-primary level, the delivery of such additional provision is dependent on the particular circumstances of each case and may be provided through one or a combination of the following: utilising existing unused capacity; extending the capacity of schools; and the provision of new schools. The Department's projections of post-primary school place requirements in north Kildare show an anticipated continued growth in enrolments in the short to medium term.

It is important to note that, where enrolment pressures arise, it could be as a result of a variety of factors. Sometimes, it is down to population increases. It is important that local authorities are kept in touch with regarding housing developments that are likely to occur in the area. Where a school has a particular reputation, it can draw pupils from outside its area. Single-sex schools might not be suitable for some pupils. In other cases, parents went to a school and want to keep the connection. While I would not overemphasise it, some parents in areas with growing populations have their children's names down for a number of schools. While that would have to be verified, it can be an element, albeit a small one.

The Department is working to establish the true extent of capacity issues across school planning areas through its discussions with the relevant school patrons and authorities. This close engagement will allow the Department to identify at an early stage particular capacity requirements for the forthcoming years and how best to deal with those.

A number of projects are under way in north Kildare or were completed recently: Maynooth Post-Primary School and Maynooth Community College; Confey College; Coláiste Chiaráin in Leixlip; Naas Community College; Coláiste Naomh Mhuire in Naas; Salesian College in Celbridge; Celbridge Community School; St. Farnan's Post-Primary School; Scoil Mhuire in Prosperous; Scoil Dara in Kilcock; and Enfield Community College. I would be happy to give further information to the Deputy on these projects.

Deputy James Lawless

I thank the Minister of State for his response and his kind words and acknowledgement concerning my work in north Kildare. Laois in his own constituency is experiencing similar growing pains, which the Minister of State advocates on regularly.

I am aware of the projects the Minister of State mentioned and there has been investment in a number of schools in north Kildare. If these were all new projects about to come on line, I would look forward to a future with them open, but many of them are already up and running. Maynooth Post-Primary School and Maynooth Community College have been open for a couple of years. Naas Community College is open. I attended its opening with the Minister, Deputy Foley, only a few months ago. Enfield Community School is also open. Despite these schools being up and running, we still do not have enough places. That is my concern.

The Minister of State is an intermediary in this, but I ask that he call on the Department of Education to take up this matter and that its forward planning section contact schools proactively and use the data the Minister of State outlined to us - Project 2040, CSO data and primary school admissions data. There is a role for principals - many of them do this work already - to engage collaboratively with one another. The Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018 provides for that level of engagement so that principals can cross-check application lists and whittle down overlaps.

More remains to be done. The system must be streamlined and made more efficient. In the case of Maynooth, it has been put to me - the suggestion makes sense - that there should be a common patron, given that there are two schools on the same campus. I do not blame the principals, both of whom I know. Mr. Johnny Nevin and Ms Siobhán McCauley are doing their best. At some level, though, perhaps communication is not working or the lists are not being refined. We can see the same happening in Clane. The principals in Naas meet regularly, but the process needs work. Perhaps the Department is the missing piece of the jigsaw.

I will conclude with Councillor Daragh Fitzpatrick, a friend and colleague who is chair of the Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board. Regarding Maynooth, he recently stated that there were 14 categories for ranking applicants but that the schools were already full after the first category.

What is the point of having 14 criteria if you cannot get to the second round because there is no more space after the first category? That is the building that I said was the biggest school project of its type in the State ever. I stress that we need those additional places. We need clarity from the Department on when and how they will be provided and we need some comfort that it will go ahead for 2023, 2024, 2025 and beyond. I would be very concerned if it was not the case.

Minister of State at the Department of Finance (Deputy Sean Fleming)

I thank the Deputy for highlighting the situation in north Kildare. I believe Deputy Lawless fully understands the position. As I mentioned earlier, the Department uses 314 planning areas around the country to plan for the future development of schools. The planning areas in Kildare North are Maynooth, Kilcock, Leixlip, Celbridge and Prosperous. I will make a practical suggestion to the Deputy. Years ago, when I was a newer Deputy in County Laois, there were 11 schools in Portlaoise, all with competing demands. I eventually got every one of their principals and board of management chairs to a meeting in the county hall where we had representatives of the Department to try to do it on a proper basis rather than each school competing with each other. It was a way by which we ended up with great results. I suggest that the Deputy identify the particular schools in the areas that I just mentioned and try to put a mechanism in place where the principal and the chair of the boards of management of the four, five or six schools can come together and work collectively. It would make it easier for the Department were there a joint effort coming forward. It might be an unusual way to do business but it is probably the Irish way of doing business by getting people in around the room and rather than each of us competing with each other and everyone ringing the Deputy to say that their classroom, ASD unit or school extension has priority. We know what happens then. He should bring the local authority into that meeting too because it is doing the county development plan and knows what is being planned in the area. As it will have details on commencement notices for new houses too, the local authority could be helpful in that process.

I acknowledge Deputy Lawless for raising this as he has done with so many issues in Kildare North, which is an area of growing population. All I would say to him is to keep the pressure on.