Minister Mary Hanifin TD has received an invitation from Deputy Joan Burton to meet with parents in Dublin 15 who cannot get find a school place for their child for next September. Parents from the Castleknock – Diswellstown area will be coming to the Dail tomorrow at 1.30pm to put their case to the Minister and the Taoiseach. They will be presenting a petition from worried families who find that they cannot get a local school place for their children.

The school places issues is one of the most pressing issues in the run up to the General Election for parents in Dublin 15 who have failed to see adequate delivery of primary and secondary school places over the 10 years that this government has been in office. Despite all the fine words and boasting of the Minister for Education that the ongoing saga of the shortage of school places would not continue, this year promises another round of stress and misery for the parents of Dublin 15.

Currently throughout Dublin West, there are parents in Luttrellstown, Diswellstown and Castleknock, Aspen, Limelawn and Clonsilla, Ongar and Littlepace in Clonee and parents in Tyrellstown – all new development areas with thousands of houses built over the last 10 years – where school places continue to be in short supply.

To compound the problem, where new schools have been built such as St. Patrick’s in Diswellstown and Mary Mother of Hope in Clonee, they have been based on reduced sized school sites so that the capacity for the schools to cope with the huge numbers of children is almost impossible.

At secondary level there is need for a new school in Castleknock aswell as immediate provision of the long promised secondary school in the Ongar Phibblestown area.

As well as tomorrows picket by parents from Diswellstown, parents in Clonee are arranging a major public meeting for this Thursday the 26th of April in the Paddocks, Clonee.