I thank the Minister of State for being here to answer this question. I wish to raise the issue of an additional accommodation scheme application from Ballinora National School in County Cork. I previously submitted parliamentary questions on this issue and the responses indicated that a decision was awaited. I understand that a positive decision has been issued to the school that funding will be made available. The question now relates to the timing of this. We are now in the month of May and need to have this ready for the new school year. The school community, parents and school management are very concerned about the time available to them to get this up and running, to secure temporary accommodation and so on. I ask that every effort be made by the Department to ensure that the school will be assisted in ensuring that it can have this additional accommodation for the new school term. This essentially will allow the school to have a second junior infant class. The demand is there. As a public representative, I have had a lot of parents contact me who are deeply concerned about the uncertainty relating to the provision of this second class. They need to be sure that they can send their child to this particular school in their local community, which is what they want to do. Unfortunately, the decision from the Department was slow in coming. When it did come it was very welcome but there is huge concern about timing and the ability to make this happen for the new school term. I seek reassurance from the Minister of State that every effort will be made by the Department to work with the school to ensure that this will be up and running so that parents, school management, staff and the principal can have a degree of certainty. I will not use all of the time allotted but would appreciate whatever level of assurance the Minister of State can give on this.

Sentiment score: 0.30

I thank the Minister of State for his response, which I welcome, particularly the section towards the end where confirmation is provided about engagement with the school in the past few days and the positive funding decision for the provision of temporary accommodation. I particularly welcome the commitment to engagement over the coming weeks with the school. It is important that active engagement takes place to ensure that this can be put in place for the coming school term starting at the end of August. That is where the concern lies. I will leave the Minister of State with one request, which is that he relays that concern back to the Department. There will be a need for active engagement to make this happen in time.

Sentiment score: 0.47