School Accommodation
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-13
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Erin McGreehan (FF), Louth

I thank the Minister of State for her response. The modular buildings, I have to attest, are high-quality buildings, but they are separate to the school. They are not part of the school. I would appreciate it if the Minister of State could get one of her officials to visit the Monksland school to see the incapacity in the school when trying to fit the students into where they are working. The principal's office has to double up as an ICT room. They have no staffroom. It really is unacceptable in this day and age that teachers would have no staffroom because it was taken up. What was the staffroom is now a classroom. They are working under huge constraints.
The Minister of State referred to the reduced student numbers but these have doubled over the past decade. There are still 139 students there and 12 teachers - I believe - who are working in conditions that are not suitable. I think there has been a miscommunication or a misunderstanding between the Department and the school in relation to previous applications for works to be done. Maybe we could work on that ourselves and get the officials to reach out to the school and meet those there to make sure that we can iron out where they are on the building work scheme and on previous applications that they feel were approved but then let lapse.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-13