Lack of school places needs to be urgently addressed

Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin-Fingal and Spokesperson on Housing, Planning and Local Government Darragh O’Brien says additional secondary school places are urgently needed in North Dublin.

Deputy O’Brien said, “Dublin-Fingal is the fastest growing and youngest constituency in the country and a great deal of work has been done by successive governments to provide additional places at primary school level, parents and students are now facing serious problems with securing secondary school places for pupils.

“For the first time in years, Malahide Community School has a waiting list of students in its catchment area that it can’t offer places to.  It’s the same story at Portmarnock Community School, Skerries Community College and St. Joseph’s Secondary School in Rush.  Families in Swords have also been in contact with me raising concerns.

“I raised this issue directly with Minister McHugh in the Dáil, and I outlined the specific problem we are experiencing with a lack of school places and asked him to carry out a targeted review for the Dublin Fingal area and come up with a plan to deal with the lack of availability of secondary school places.  The Minister has agreed to this request and I will be following up with him.

“The situation has reached crisis point in north Dublin.  The delivery of the promised new schools needs to be expedited. 

“I have spent the past couple of weeks speaking to parents and they are very worried that their kids won’t get a school place next year.  The Minister needs to intervene and find a solution to this problem – if the government had planned properly for the demographic needs of our area we wouldn’t be in this situation”, concluded Deputy O’Brien