Sean Flynn in the Irish Times, 28/04/2006

Dublin 15 to get new school places this September

New school places are being made available to cope with the crisis in the Dublin 15 area, where up to 200 children have been struggling to gain places next September……..Labour’s Joan Burton – who first highlighted the crisis in Dublin 15 – has welcomed the moves.

Article in Full:

Dublin 15 to get new school places this September

New school places are being made available to cope with the crisis in the Dublin 15 area, where up to 200 children have been struggling to gain places next September

More than 8,000 new homes have been built in the area in recent years but, until yesterday, little extra provision was made for additional school capacity.

Minister for Education Mary Hanafin announced yesterday that Castaheaney Educate Together school would take an additional class of junior infants this September. She has also agreed to grant recognition to a new primary school for the area with effect from September under the patronage of the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin.

Labour’s Joan Burton – who first highlighted the crisis in Dublin 15 – has welcomed the moves. “Finally, after years of campaigning, the Minister has opened her ears and taken a step towards addressing the schools places crisis in Dublin 15,” she said. “The rate and pace of development in this area is almost unprecedented and we need to ensure that we have sufficient education infrastructure in place to cater for the ever-increasing number of pupils seeking school places,” added Ms Burton.

“The department had anticipated that a further new school would have been required for September 2007 and that the recognition of a new school could have been processed this autumn within the normal school recognition process,” Ms Hanafin said. “The greater-than-anticipated population change in the area means we cannot wait and therefore I am taking the exceptional measure of recognising a new school. . .”

Ms Burton said thousands of houses have been built in the area over the past 10 years, and “yet no provision was made to provide an education for the children that moved into the area”.

© The Irish Times

The Irish Times devoted a full page to the Dublin 15 Schools Crisis today.

The Editor Wrote:

The lack of school places in Dublin 15, detailed on page 12 today, raises serious questions about education planning. Some 200 four and five year-olds have been left without a place in local schools because demand greatly exceeds supply. Parents say they have virtually no prospect of enrolling their children in any local school. Labour’s Joan Burton, who has helped to highlight the problem, says this is the fifth year in a row that children have been essentially locked out of very good local schools because of the acute accommodation shortage.

It beggars belief that the authorities at national and local level did not anticipate the problem. More than 8,000 new homes have been built in the area in recent years but no adequate provision has been made for additional school places. The Department of Education, for its part, says it responds to local demand from parents or church authorities anxious to build a school. But this kind of “hands-off” approach is not credible at a time when areas like those in Dublin 15 are expanding at a very rapid rate. And in fairness, the department appears to be adopting a more proactive approach in Co Louth where – as reported on page 2 today – it is seeking provision for both primary and post-primary schools as part of a major proposed extension to Drogheda.

The Department of Education and other Government departments have extensive information on population trends (which will be supplemented by the results of the forthcoming census) and on housing provision, and it is incumbent on them to respond by providing essential local services. In the case of Dublin 15, Minister of State and local TD Brian Lenihan acknowledges that the Government was caught on the back foot but maintains it is now beginning to cope.

In the Dáil last week, Minister for Education Mary Hanafin outlined a range of emergency measures to help alleviate the problem. As “an exceptional measure”, the board of management in one local school will consider taking a fourth stream of junior infants next September. And her department is in discussion with a range of school patrons about the need to provide further accommodation in response to the huge demand.

In all of this, there is the sense of stable doors being bolted. The school accommodation crisis in Dublin 15 should have been addressed long before it reached its current scale and not just by the Department of Education. The Department of the Environment and local authorities should not allow housing on this scale without first satisfying themselves about the provision of basic services such as schools and other education resources.

© The Irish Times

Articles on Page 12

Locked out: why 200 children in Dublin 15 have no school place

Gráinne Faller
11/04/2006

With 8,000 houses built in the area in the past nine years, it might have occured to someone that some of the new residents of Dublin 15 might be children – or indeed might go on to have children. No one seemed to notice. Now 200 of this September’s prospective junior infants have been left without a school place. So what went wrong?

Parents in Dublin 15 are in a quandary. Having enrolled their children in local schools at the appropriate time, hundreds of them have been told that there is no place for their four-year-old this September. Now, 200 children – almost half of those enrolled – are facing an uncertain future as schools have had to give priority to the eldest children on their waiting lists, leaving no room for the rest.

This is not a new problem. Dublin 15 is a rapidly expanding area with 8,000 houses having been built there in just nine years. The pace of development is showing no sign of slowing and has accelerated over the past three years. Young families have moved in and schools have grown to meet the increased demand. There is only so much schools can do, however, and with the problem worsening year in year out, the question has to be asked – how have things become this bad?

“This is the fifth year in a row that this has happened,” says Labour’s Joan Burton, one of the area’s TDs. “This year is the worst of all . . . It’s like Groundhog Day.”

The two schools involved in this particular crisis are Mary Mother of Hope School in Littlepace and St Patrick’s School in Diswellstown. Both have tried to adapt to the growing communities. Mary Mother of Hope School, for example, grew from a two- to a four-stream school, doubling its capacity, as demand increased. Despite the expansion, however, they still had to turn 100 children away this year.

Minister of State for Education Brian Lenihan, also a TD in the area, admits that the way that the area developed in terms of the number of families moving into Dublin 15 was a surprise to the Government. “The house types have varied. While some high-rise developments have very few children in them . . . other high-rise developments have large numbers of children in them. Families are living in apartment units and of course that creates huge pressure in an area.”

Lenihan admits that the Government was caught on the back foot. “We are playing catch-up. As with many of our infrastructure stories, we’ve had this tremendous boom and now we’re beginning to cope with it.”

Whether the Government is coping or not is a matter for debate. Enda McGorman, principal of Mary Mother of Hope School in Littlepace, believes the problem is complex. The influx of non-nationals into the area has changed the demographic in a way that was difficult to predict and the rising suburban birthrate was unexpected, but McGorman believes that the Government should learn from the Dublin 15 experience. “I think everybody has been caught on the hop . . . We need to be more strategic about development.”

The Department of Education and Science has little choice in this case but to add classrooms and temporary structures to existing schools while building permanent structures for other schools in the area. Mary Mother of Hope School is currently sharing its grounds with the Castaheany Educate Together School, which is currently based in a number of temporary structures on the same premises. Jane McCarthy, development officer with Educate Together says: “We have three schools in that area – Tyrrelstown, Ongar (known as Castaheany) and Castleknock. All three are in temporary accommodation and not one is operating at its full capacity.”

Some measures have been taken to remedy the situation. A rapid building programme is beginning to take effect and St Patrick’s School in Diswellstown was completed in 13 months. It is, however, already hugely oversubscribed. Further measures are being taken. As Lenihan explains: “We’ve just acquired a site for Castaheany Educate Together school in Ongar and we have to have a rapid build on that school.” The permanent structure is to be finished by 2007.

Burton is not impressed. “Educate Together has been promised a site for the past five years … it’s only now they look like getting it,” she says. “The department is shoving children into everywhere it can.”

For the moment it seems that measures taken are simply a stopgap from year to year.

“The problem has been rumbling for a couple of years, but we have always managed to address the problems as they have arisen,” says Lenihan. “Every year at this time when the offers of school places go out in our area there are difficulties with particular schools, but the principals of the schools do work at resolving those difficulties. We have to provide the classrooms needed for 2006 there’s no way out of that.”

He does admit, however, that such measures are only for the short term. A longer-term approach, in the form of a new school, will be needed.

The problem is a complicated one. Resources are no longer a problem, but acquiring land is a lengthy and expensive process. The Castaheany site was procured recently, but only after a long process of negotiation with the developer. Burton believes that this needs to be dealt with. “The law needs to be changed so that we’re not paying ransom sums to developers,” she says. According to Lenihan, the Minister for the Environment is currently looking into the situation.

But why has it come to this? Why hasn’t the department conducted surveys of growth areas and anticipated the needs of communities? Why does it seem that such a situation is just waiting to repeat itself in another growth area?

As the situation stands, there is a great likelihood of this happening again and again in other areas of rapid development and high birth rates. Labour TD Tommy Broughan has been warning of a similar problem, imminent in Dublin’s north fringe development. It seems like a perfect time for the department to step in, establish a school and quell the need before it becomes a crisis, he says.

Except for one thing – the department does not initiate the setting up of schools. Patron bodies such as the Catholic Church, Church of Ireland, Educate Together and Gaelscoileanna do. The problem? It is not really the job of any of these bodies to look at population trends and establish schools where they may be needed. In the current system, it is much more likely for a need to exist already, parents to go to a patron body and request that a school be established.

“The department tends to take a very hands-off approach when it comes to establishing new schools,” says McCarthy of Educate Together. “We see no improvement in this. If anything it’s getting worse.”

The upcoming census will provide useful data about growth areas and if the system changes to enable the department to take a more hands-on role in establishing new schools, similar situations may well be prevented. At the moment, the department’s planning section is working more closely with planning authorities. Increases in money allocated for school buildings as well as the rapid build programme have improved the situation and a pilot partnership with Fingal County Council in which the council works with the department in procuring school land at a reasonable price is a model that, if it works, could be replicated elsewhere, says Lenihan.

For Dublin 15, however, the measures have an air of desperation about them. Schools have been built only to find themselves unable to deal with the increased numbers.

McGorman is reluctant to play the blame game. He is adamant that strategic planning is the answer. Lenihan believes that sufficient measures will be taken to prevent this kind of problem occurring in other areas. Burton, on the other hand, says that the Department of Education is in denial about the gravity of the situation.

Only time will tell who is right. In the meantime, parents and children will continue to bear the brunt of the uncertainty.

© The Irish Times

No vacancies: One family’s story

11/04/2006

Julie Francis is on the parents’ committee in Mary Mother of Hope School in Dublin 15. Her commitment to the school hasn’t helped her situation however.

A mother of four young children, two of whom are attending the school, she was dismayed to find that her third child has not received an offer of a place for this coming year.

“As yet, Chloe is on the waiting list at number 82,” she says. “I was in a panic when I originally found out because her playschool had assumed she was going to school in September and had given her place to someone else.” Fortunately for the Francis family, another child was withdrawn from the playschool and Chloe was given that space.

All the same, plans have been dashed. “Chloe was very upset when she found she wasn’t going,” says Francis. “She walks up to the school everyday with me. Some of her friends are going to school next year, but others haven’t got a place. It is upsetting.”

As it stands, it will take three new classes to be added to the school in order for Chloe to get a place. Of course some children may not accept the places offered, but the chance of the school getting over 80 refusals is slim to say the least. Extra classes will be essential.

According to Francis, some parents have opted to split their children, sending some to one school and others to another. This is not an option for her. “I walk my children to school,” she says. “I couldn’t physically bring Chloe to a different one.”

She believes that unless a solution is found, there is no choice but for her daughter to hold on for another year. Minister of State for Education Brian Lenihan came out to the school and expressed the need for a new school, but as yet, nothing has happened. “I rang the school planning department, but I was told to ring back in three weeks as they know nothing yet,” says Francis.

“They are obviously not looking at the demand in the area,” says Francis. “Our school is full, Huntstown is full, the Educate Together school is full. There is nowhere for children to go.”

“It just seems that we are having to fight for everything,” she says. “The school is wonderful and the principal has fought so hard. It’s a battle for him too . . . He always seems to be supervising the instalment of new prefabs.”

She is concerned about the consequences of the overcrowding. “There is a big knock-on effect with all of this. It’s affecting playschools in the area – if all these children have to wait for another year, next year’s children won’t get a place. It has a big effect on everybody.”

Gráinne Faller

© The Irish Times

Speaking at an adjourment debate in the Dail on Wednesday 5th April, Joan Burton TD said:

“Hundreds of children in Dublin 15 have no school place for this coming September. The reason is simple. Thousands of houses have been built in the Littlepace area and Castleknock area over the last five years but no provision has been made to provide school places for all of the new families moving into the area.”

Now we face another round of crisis meetings to secure places for around 200 children who could not be accommodated in the first round of offers.

I want to take a very positive approach in addressing this crisis, as the only thing I am interested in is resolving this issue for once and for all. Next year’s parents cannot be put through the same distress and upset that parents have experienced recently, year on year, in Dublin 15.

I believe that there is a clear and pressing need to commit to four things:

· A full new primary school in the Ongar Littlepace area,
· Complete the permanent buildings for the Castaheany Educate Together Primary School which is currently based in temporary pre-fabs
· Build an extra primary school in Castleknock
· Provide a new secondary school in the Porterstown/Castaheany area to cater for families in houses that were built ten years ago in the area.

To resolve this crisis, I am calling for a round table conference of all school principals with County Council and Education officials, a proper assessment of new needs for the next 5 to 10 years in line with expected new housing, immediate purchase of sites for the new schools that will be required in Castheany, Ongar and Hansfield and Castleknock and a phased plan to build the schools at the same time as the houses.

Last year a quick fix solution was found when the Minister was faced with a full scale revolt from parents and the whole community.

This year, in response to my recent PQ’s the Minister herself acknowledged the extent of the crisis, referring yesterday “ to the unabating increase in demand for pupil places” in Dublin 15. Expanding existing schools, while welcome is not enough. She plans for Dublin West to have many primary schools of 1,000 pupils. With class sizes among the highest in the country at 30+, this is a shamefully inadequate response from a rich government. We need more schools, particularly as new communities of 2,000 plus houses and apartments are being regularly built and more planned. The interests of developers and their land deals cannot stand before the interests of our children.

The Minister unfortunately from yesterday’s reply continues to keep her head in the sand. Planning for these new schools has to start today. Our children want school places but they also want and need a quality education in permanent buildings with reasonable class sizes. Unless this is provided, this government will continue to fail the new communities in Clonee, Littlepace, Ongar, Hansfield, Diswellstown, Luttrellstown, Tyrellstown, and the many other growth areas in Dublin 15.

In response to Deputy Burton’s questions about the lack of school places for hundreds of children in Dublin 15, Minister Hanifin confirmed that there is no new policy in place to deal with this crisis.

Last years intensive lobbying resulted in a sticking plaster solution from the Minister of Education that squeezed children into classrooms at the last minute. In her latest response, the Minister outlines her plans to possibly create an extra stream of junior infants in local schools.

Deputy Burton said: “There is a clear and pressing need to commit to a full new primary school in the Ongar Littlepace area, to complete the permanent buildings for the Castaheany Educate Together Primary School which is currently based in temporary pre-fabs, to build an extra primary school in Castleknock and to provide a new secondary school in the Porterstown/Castaheany area to cater for families in houses that were built ten years ago in the area.”

“Stretching the capacity of existing schools in the area is not going to make this problem go away.”

Minister’s Response to Parliamentary Questions.

Uimhir:488

Ceist Pharlaiminte

Chun an Aire Oideachais agus Eolaíoctha
To the Minister for Education and Science

To ask the Minister for Education and Science if her attention has been drawn
to the crisis that has developed at a school (details supplied) in Dublin 15
where over 100 children have been refused places to start school in September
2006; her proposals to immediately provide school places for the 8,000 new
homes that have recently been built in the Littlepace area; and if she will
make a statement on the matter.
– Joan Burton.

* For WRITTEN answer on Tuesday, 4th April, 2006.
Reference Number: 12962/06

Freagra

Minister for Education and Science (Mary Hanafin, T.D.)

At the outset, I want to say that I am fully conscious that the Dublin 15 area
as a whole is one of the most rapidly developing areas in the country and, as a
result of this, there has been a marked increase in the demand for school
places, particularly at primary level.

My Department is taking a number of measures to increase the capacity of
existing schools in the area concerned along with the development of new
schools to meet this growing demand.

A building project to provide a new building for the particular school to which
the Deputy refers was completed in September, 2005. To further increase
capacity at the school, my Department approached the Board of Management in
2005 to discuss the possibility of expanding the school to cater for a four
stream intake at junior infant level. The Board agreed to this measure. To
facilitate this expansion, my Department purchased additional land adjacent to
the school which will enable the construction of an additional 16 classroom
school to meet the school’s permanent accommodation needs. This new building
has a target delivery date of September, 2007. In the interim my Department
has appointed a consultant architect to oversee the provision of temporary
accommodation at the school to meet its immediate needs.

The area in question is also served by an Educate Together National
School. A project to provide a new building for this school is underway with a
target delivery date also of September, 2007.
In the interim my Department has arranged that the school will continue to
occupy temporary accommodation at Littlepace.

I am confident that a combination of the measures outlined will assist in
alleviating the demand for pupil places in the area for the foreseeable
future. However, due to the current level of demand emanating from the Dublin
15 area, the need to provide even further school accommodation is under
consideration and my Department is engaging with the key school Patron authorities that are active in the area.

Uimhir:489

Ceist Pharlaiminte

Chun an Aire Oideachais agus Eolaíoctha
To the Minister for Education and Science

To ask the Minister for Education and Science if her attention has been drawn
to the crisis that has developed at a school (details supplied) in Dublin 15
where up to 100 children have been refused places to start school in September
2006; her proposals to immediately provide school places for the 5,000 new
homes that have recently been built in the Diswellstown and Castleknock area;
and if she will make a statement on the matter.
– Joan Burton.

* For WRITTEN answer on Tuesday, 4th April, 2006.
Reference Number: 12963/06

Freagra

Minister for Education and Science (Mary Hanafin, T.D.)

At the outset, I want to say that I am fully conscious that the Dublin 15 area
as a whole is one of the most rapidly developing areas in the country and, as a
result of this, there has been a marked increase in the demand for school
places, particularly at primary level.

My Department is taking a number of measures to increase the capacity of
existing schools in the area concerned along with the development of new
schools to meet this growing demand.

The school referred to by the Deputy has recently moved into a new 24 classroom
school and this will facilitate an annual 3 stream junior infant intake
However, as an exceptional matter the Board of Management is in discussions
with the School Planning Section of my Department regarding the possibility of
enrolling a fourth stream of Junior infants this year to cater for increased
demand.

In parallel with this, my Department is currently in discussions with a second
school in the area regarding the possibility of it expanding to cater for an
annual four stream intake. The school currently has an intake of 3 Junior
infant classes. A building project to provide permanent accommodation for this
level of expansion will be afforded the highest priority

I am confident that a combination of the measures as outlined will assist in
alleviating the demand for pupil places in the area in the short term.
However, due to the unabating increase in demand for pupil places, the need to
provide even further school accommodation is under active consideration in my
Department.

In the Irish Times today:

Teacher’s Pet
04/04/2006

An insider’s guide to education

• That excellent statement by Labour TD Joan Burton about the scandalous lack of school places in Dublin 15 has touched a very raw nerve in the Department of Education.

Hundreds of kids cannot enrol in junior infants in local schools. Why? Because 10,000 houses were built in the likes of Clonee and its surrounds in recent years. But no one bothered to think about school supply.

Burton has put her finger on a problem which could be a real issue in the next general election – the scandalous lack of planning in the new suburbs around Dublin and elsewhere.

This is an issue which Minister for Education Mary Hanafin will need to address sooner rather than later – and she knows it.

In Dublin 15, staff and parents have just finished celebrating the opening of the new primary schools at Littlepace and Diswellstown. These are the first new permanent primary schools to be built in 9 years of Fianna Fail/PD Government. Already both schools are oversubscribed. We face another round of crisis meetings to secure places for around 200 children who could not be accommodated in the first round of offers.

Its like Groundhog Day ,the same early Spring ritual when parents seek to enroll children to start school in September, but find that demand far exceeds supply for places. Last year a quick fix solution was found when the Minister was faced with a full scale revolt from parents and the whole community.

Joan Burton TD has suggested a way forward to obtain a long-term solution.
· A round table conference of all school principals with County Council and Education officials
· A proper assessment of new needs for the next 5 to 10 years in line with expected new housing
· Immediate purchase of sites for the new schools that will be required in Castheany, Ongar and Hansfield and Castleknock.
· A phased plan to build the schools at the same time as the houses

It’s not that money is in short supply. Like other Government Departments Education handed back millions of euros of its allocation for 2005 at the end of the year. The money is there for these schools but there is a woeful lack of planning and commitment.

Apart from the primary schools issue Joan has been urging the Minister to put her mind to the issue of a second level school as well. The demand for one is there already and can only increase as children end their primary school term and seek local secondary places.

The existing secondary schools in Coolmine,Hartstown and Castleknock are already working at full capacity and could not cope with the expected number of new pupils in the coming years.

“I just feel it is time to make a decision very soon to acquire a site and get the project underway in sufficient time to cater for the needs of those who will finish primary school and will want local secondary places” said Deputy Burton.

What The STAR said:

No School Places for Kids

Hundreds of parents of junior-infant kids are facing an uncertain summer – because the children have been refused a primary place for next September.

About 200 kids – 100 who had applied to St. Patrick’s School in Diswellstown in Castleknock and a further 100 who had applied to Mary Mother of Hope National School in Littlepace – have just been told that there will be no space for them.

Many of the children have had their names on the waiting list for the west Dublin schools since they were born.

Although both schools have threee to four streams of junior infants, they simply cannot accommodate the huge surge in applications for places.

Stephen Carney from Bramblefield near Littlepace had his daughter Emma (4) enrolled at Mary Mother of Hope School but was told just last week that there would be no room for her there.

Mr. Carney told The Star that parents in the area are angry and frustrated.

FAILED

“There has been a massive amount of development in the area over the years but the facilities are not in place to cater for the people living there ” he said.

“My daughter can’t wait to go to school. We may have no option but to either hold her back another year or send her to a school further away”.

Local Labour Party TD Joan Burton said that Government had “failed miserably to provide school facilities to cope with the population explosion in Dublin 15”.

What the Irish Independent said:

John Walshe

An overcrowded primary school in a rapidly expanding Dublin communter belt has had to turn away 128 young children because there is no room for them next September.

The Mary Mother of Hope National School in Littlepace, which is close to the Dublin/Meath border, has decided that anybody born after December 24, 2001 cannot be enrolled in the next school year.

School principal Enda McGorman said he knew many parents were very upset by the decision, but there was no option. Last year the school increased its intake to 116 and was tkaking in the same number again this time.

Labour TD Joan Burton said many parents were furious over the lack of places for pupils from the Littlepace/Clonee/Ongar area, which has expanded massively in recent years.

“Parents who put their child’s name down for a school place the month he or she was born four and a half years ago are now devastated to realise that there is no school place for thier child”, she said.

“This situation would not be acceptable in any country never mind in the booming economy of modern Ireland”.

But Minister Brian Lenihan said the matter was being looked at as a matter of urgency. Talks were taking place with school trustees about opening a new school in the area in time for the coming school year.

Mr. Lenihan said that a separate problem over school accommodation in Diswellstown/Castleknock was the subject of discussions yesterday with the Department of Education’s Building Unit.

Bt Ms. Burton said”If you build 5,000 houses and apartments in the Diswellstown are in Castleknock and a further 8,000 in the Littlepace/Clonee/Ongar area it would seem obvious even to a four year old looking for a place that schools would be required”.

What the Irish Times said:

Not enough school places in West Dublin

About 200 children have failed to get into schools in a west Dublin suburb because of a shortage of accommodation, according to Joan Burton of the Labour Party, writes Seán Flynn.

She said a hundred children had applied to St Patrick’s school, Castleknock, and a hundred more had applied to Mary Mother of Hope national school at Littlepace.

Their parents had been told there was no space for them in junior infants even though some children were on the waiting list since they were born.

Ms Burton said the situation was a direct result of poor planning. “If you build 5,000 houses and apartments in the Diswellstown area in Castleknock and a further 8,000 in the Littlepace/ Clonee/Ongar area, it would seem obvious, even to a four- year-old looking for a place, that schools would be required.”

In both of these areas, however, the department had only now finished building the first of the permanent primary schools.

She said the Minister for Education and the Government had, after nine years in power, “failed miserably to provide school places for the population explosion in Dublin 15”.