The Government seriously needs to reassess and reconfirm its commitment to imminently provide the full extension and refurbishment project promised to Lucan Community College going back to 2010. We are talking about dedicated classrooms for children with special educational needs, physical education space and refurbishment. The current piecemeal solution of a reduced phase 1 and temporary repurposing of some rooms for special educational needs and reviewing the situation in relation to the originally promised phases 2, 3 and 4 is not satisfactory. Lucan Community College has a long and illustrious history in my constituency. It goes back to the vocational education committee, VEC, in the 1950s on the Lucan Newlands Road. By 1997, with population increases, the new Lucan Community College was established on its current location in Esker Drive under what is known today as the Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Education and Training Board, DDLETB. This school rapidly gained a reputation as a centre of excellence, so much so that it started to need lotteries for places at a very early stage. Today, even acknowledging the deficit of second level school places and the fact that the Department is always behind the curve in providing places, it is the co-educational school of choice in Lucan. Lucan Community College has always been massively oversubscribed. Parents and children want to go to this institution because of the quality of teaching and the depth of its curriculum. When it started out in the new building in 1997, it was a state-of-the-art facility. However, it soon found itself needing to increase its intake. It has approximately 956 pupils today. Its capacity has not matched that increase in population. Different parts of the school started deteriorating over time - stuff that could not be fixed with summer work schemes and other tranches of funding. It is now overcrowded. It needs a major extension and significant refurbishment. These days, parents apply to get their kids into the school in spite of, not because of, the facilities of the school. I have been told by several exasperated parents who have more than one child in the school that this is the case. They know that the school facility is not great but that the teachers are fantastic. A lot more is needed, but the Department is dragging its heels. To put it in context, I first heard about this and I was raising Dáil questions in previous terms going back to 2007 when it was gradually moving towards the architectural planning stage in 2010. However, it took several more years to get the design and the planning permission in and it dragged on to 2020-21 when, eventually, it started moving towards the tender. In 2024, however, there was a delay in terms of issuing letters of intent. The school felt huge relief when this finally came through. They thought the extension was finally coming but last summer, in replies to parliamentary questions, it was indicated by the predecessor of the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, that due to the length of time between planning and construction, there was going to be a review of the project. Everyone thought this was going to involve tweaking and shaving stuff off because we know the costs have increased but no, the plan was now to build a modular building that was well insulated and long lasting, etc., but on a much smaller footprint, with no indication of what is going into the original footprint and over what period of time. Phases 2, 3 and 4 are very opaque. There is no transparency. No one knows exactly what is going to happen. We need a commitment today that phases 2, 3 and 4, because we are talking about modular builds, can be designed and put into the current footprint, if that is possible, or if it needs a new planning application, that process can start so that in a matter of a year or 18 months, we can move on.

Sentiment score: 0.08

The school has had to take the decision to subdivide rooms and to move students in order to have special educational needs classes in a setting that is not going to disturb students. I will give a few quotes from parents. Parents have said that every month that passes is actively harming children, that the school is not fit for purpose, that children with additional needs have been failed despite explicit promises and that children are stressed, more constrained and are falling behind through no fault of their own. There is confusion in terms of earlier responses from the Minister, Deputy Naughton, which said that phase 1 would include special educational needs classrooms but now it does not. Another parent said that it is entirely unclear as to the process and that the lack of transparency here is atrocious. Another very concerning thing is that because of the overcrowding in the school, on a number of occasions students have been found eating their lunches in toilets when it is raining because they have nowhere inside to go. The staff do not allow this and they are told to move as quickly as possible but some of them go in there because there are radiators and it is a warm places to eat. That is not acceptable in 2026. This is the level of the conditions the students are being forced to endure. There are no areas for kids to have extracurricular activities and to meet and have casual chats that make school days, days to remember. It is all about into class and out of class. There is no room to engage and have that quality of life in the school environment. It is heartbreaking to see this for the children. What we need are firm commitments in respect of the phase 1 modular building, the timber framed and well-insulated building. That is all well and good but in the original outline of the building, can we get clear answers from the Department that phase 2 can be commenced very quickly, because it is modular? The same goes for phases 3 and 4. Can these be designed and planned so they can go in a lot quicker and that in 18 months to two years, we can see the buildings?

Sentiment score: -0.02