Sinn Féin TD for Wicklow, John Brady, has challenged officials from the Department of Education and Youth at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) over failures in forward planning for the provision of school accommodation, highlighting in particular the case of Kilcoole Primary School.
Teachta Brady said:
“The Department likes to highlight its effective, efficient and robust system of forward planning when it comes to the provision of school accommodation.
“But the experience of many schools across Wicklow is anything but effective, efficient or robust.
“I have consistently highlighted the continued delays in delivering long-awaited and long-promised school builds across County Wicklow, and called out the Government for failing to deliver on its political promises..
“At the PAC this week, I directly challenged Department of Education officials on their failures, in particular highlighting the case of Kilcoole Primary School, a case that shines a light on the cost of the Department’s continued delays.
“After years of planning and design works, this project finally moved to the construction phase.
“This was a massive relief for the school community, as pre-fabs had been in place at the school since 2011, and they would now be moving to a fully permanent building.
“Or so they thought.
“Due to the lengthy and cumbersome nature of the Department’s process, the needs of the school community had significantly changed from the outset of the project.
“The Department stated in correspondence that the requirement for two special needs classrooms was only identified well into the process, after the construction contract had already been awarded.
“And it has now emerged that the current requirement has increased from two to four special needs classes.
“The solution that the Department proposes is the use of pre-fabs for these additional classes.
“That is completely unacceptable and what message does that send to our children.
“How can we talk about inclusion when children with special educational needs are being offered pre-fabs instead of permanent classrooms like the rest of the school?
“At the meeting, I urged the Department’s officials to reconsider this and to take action now to ensure that permanent SEN classrooms are incorporated into the permanent building development now.
“I also now call on the Minister for Education to intervene in this case and ensure that a permanent solution is found for these classrooms.
“This case is symptomatic of the wider problems with the Department’s provision of school accommodation and the wider pattern of Government failure to deliver essential infrastructure.
“The continued reliance on substandard facilities and outdated prefabs is completely unacceptable.”
ENDS