As my colleagues have said, there are three of us here from the constituency but it is fair to say the five TDs in our constituency support the school in this regard. There is a short-term and long-term need in the school. The short-term need is to get an emergency grant to fix this roof, which is badly leaking. Almost daily water is dripping into classrooms and leaving pools. When we were there one of the classrooms was referred to as the Amazon rainforest by the students because of the rain coming down. There are buckets in classrooms and it is destroying the children's work, at times. Teachers cannot have any desks in that area. The panels on the roof collapsed on parents during a parent-teacher meeting. It is happening during school hours and the management cannot really predict where these collapses are going to happen. In the short term the roof needs to be done. As for the longer term, the Department approached the school in 2011 about adding 20 new classrooms. After three years, the Department's architect suggested a whole new rebuild. As Deputy Murphy said, that was in 2014. We are 12 years on from that and the school just wants to push the project along and that is what it is looking for now.

Sentiment score: -0.05

The principal and staff of the school are doing a brilliant job and it is a fabulous school. It is a big school in Old Bawn. There are about 700 or 800 students in it. It is lucky the school has a big site where it will be possible to build the new school at the same time as keeping the existing building going and doing it in phases without the need for additional funding for modular or temporary accommodation for the students. The school can do this project with relative ease on its existing site. We call again for a meeting with the Minister and Department officials to get this thing moving. We all know it has been delayed for too long and there is a real, urgent need here.

Sentiment score: 0.22