Schools Building Projects
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26
============================================================

Aidan Farrelly (SD), Kildare North

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to speak on this matter. The Minister of State is faced with a rare situation whereby all the TDs in the constituency are working together on it. We raised it earlier with the Secretary General of the Department of education at the Committee of Public Accounts. We know that Simon Harris and the Minister are aware of what is happening.
Deputy Neville outlined the matter in a very comprehensive manner. We need to see action on the architect's report. The evidence is no longer anecdotal. There is a real and significant health and safety concern for the children. There are issues with fire safety, the floor plate, wall retention, mould and damp, etc. Nobody should be expected to learn in such an environment. The entire school community, including the principal, the teachers, the SNAs and the secretaries, should not be expected to work in those conditions.
I join Deputies Neville, Cronin, Ó Cearúil and Lawless in commending the entire school community regarding what they have had to endure. I cannot overstate how concerned the parents are right now. We have reached the point where they are organising a meeting next week to try to progress this. They do not know what the next steps need to be, which is why they need the State to step in on an emergency basis. None of us really believes that works will suffice at this point. The Minister of State knows that for an 18-year-old modular unit with a design lifetime of five years, it is not a great solution to upgrade what is there now. We need something in the short term which will ensure that the health and safety of the staff and children is of paramount importance. We all look forward to the Minister of State's reply. He should know that he has collective support from all TDs in the constituency in the context of progressing this over the next couple of weeks. The latter is the timeline within which we need to see action.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-26