I thank the Minister, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, for taking this matter. It is great to have her here this evening. I congratulate the Minister on her new position and I wish her the very best of luck in the term ahead. I raise this Topical Issue matter on behalf of Monksland National School in County Louth, a local school to me and just down the road from where I live. I raise this because the same queries could be replicated in many schools across County Louth and across the country that are struggling for space for facilities and for permanent solutions. Monksland National School is an example of how temporary solutions quietly become permanent through the delay and what often feels like a lack of accountability. Like many schools in County Louth, it is a growing school. Enrolment has doubled over the past decade. That growth should be a success story but instead the school is operating under pressure in conditions that most not definitely need to be improved. A few years ago the school had approval for additional accommodation. Due to delays, however, modular units were installed as temporary accommodation for much-needed and much-welcomed autism spectrum disorder, ASD, classes. These were never meant to be a permanent solution to the overall accommodation solutions that are needed for the accommodation shortfall of the school. I fear the Department seems to be treating the school as if its accommodation needs have now been met. They certainly have not. Every room in the original school building is now used for a classroom. There is no staffroom to accommodate 12 teachers and ancillary staff. There is no space for teachers to sit to have their break. I believe that staff are often sitting in their cars. Again, growth should be seen as a success story but it has led to hardship. It is not just about the minor inconvenience of this. It is a basic failure to provide acceptable working conditions. The school has no general purpose area. It has no PE hall. That deficit has existed since the building was constructed in the early 1960s. As a result, pupils cannot fully access PE or well-being curriculum requirements, particularly during the winter months when outdoor activity is most unsafe. The crux of it is that we need permanent classrooms, we need a staffroom, and we need a PE and general purpose hall. This applies particularly for those isolated schools that cannot link up with a sports club. It is either inappropriate or it does not make sense for them to match up with a sports club to build a hall and to access grants under the sports capital grant. They need the Department of Education and Youth to support them to help them create those facilities. They really want a school that feels like one school and one community as opposed to one building and modular buildings alongside it. It is a fantastic school. I know many of the teachers and indeed I went to school with many of the teachers. The children in there are thriving but I think they can do better under better conditions and additional accommodation.

Sentiment score: 0.11

I thank the Minister of State for her response. The modular buildings, I have to attest, are high-quality buildings, but they are separate to the school. They are not part of the school. I would appreciate it if the Minister of State could get one of her officials to visit the Monksland school to see the incapacity in the school when trying to fit the students into where they are working. The principal's office has to double up as an ICT room. They have no staffroom. It really is unacceptable in this day and age that teachers would have no staffroom because it was taken up. What was the staffroom is now a classroom. They are working under huge constraints. The Minister of State referred to the reduced student numbers but these have doubled over the past decade. There are still 139 students there and 12 teachers - I believe - who are working in conditions that are not suitable. I think there has been a miscommunication or a misunderstanding between the Department and the school in relation to previous applications for works to be done. Maybe we could work on that ourselves and get the officials to reach out to the school and meet those there to make sure that we can iron out where they are on the building work scheme and on previous applications that they feel were approved but then let lapse.

Sentiment score: 0.02