Schools Building Projects
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-09
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Conor D. McGuinness (SF), Waterford

Gabhaim buíochas as sin ach níl sé ró-úsáideach dom ná do na daoine atá bainteach leis an scoil seo. I thank the Minister of State for the response. I appreciate him being here to read it. However, similar to other speakers tonight, I will put on record that I would much prefer it if one of the two Ministers in the Department of education were here. Neither is. That in itself tells us something. We could have a more engaging and robust conversation. That is no criticism of the Minister of State. To be fair, he is here doing his job.
What we need here is real and meaningful engagement with the school. I had the school principal, the deputy principal and the chairperson of the board of management in Leinster House for some meetings this evening. I understand they are going to meet with the Minister tomorrow. However, that cannot just be a meeting to go through what the Minister of State has just said here. I hope the Minister has more to say to the school because this is holding back the ability of children to get an education, of educators to do their jobs safely and of parents to vindicate their children's right to an education through the medium of Irish.
No matter what way you cut it, this is an infringement of children's basic rights, such as the right of children with special educational needs attending this excellent school to be able to get the educational interventions they need and deserve in an adequate and appropriate place. It infringes the right of children who are learning to move around during their break times and not be stuck in a classroom, sometimes a prefab classroom, without access to a halla or clós to go outside and play. We need a can-do attitude from the Minister tomorrow. We do not need a litany of what has been achieved, what might be achieved and what is aspired to. It is about the nuts and bolts of remedying this situation. If it is a matter of pointing to a miscommunication or error on the Department's part that it is going to solve, that is fine. We will take that all day long but we need an approach that aims to fix this and sets out how, and that involves working with the school community. They are reasonable people but they have been trying to get this extension for years.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-09