This past week I called on the Minister for Education to act now before schools in the Naas area face an accommodation crisis.  There is an urgent need for the Minister and his Department to issue the tender to commence building the new site which will be used by Naas Community College. This is the major delay and as a result of the Ministers lack of action, by 2020, 800 students in the Naas area will be affected.

I have raised this matter in the Dáil with the Taoiseach and Minister for Education.  The Minister claims his Department is reviewing its programme for capital expenditure in 2018 and 2019. There should be no need for a review; the department already committed to the school when they ordered it to open up four years ago. The tender must be issued to avoid a schools crisis in Naas,

Naas Community College has opened, the patron has a site bought and is ready to go already. Planning permission has been granted by Kildare County Council but we are now facing a situation in which 231 students applied for places in September 2017 and 111 were turned away. There is a primary school, Naas Community National School, co-located on the same temporary accommodation. If this continues, by 2020 we will have 800 students in temporary accommodation that was created for 500. We urgently need the tender to be issued so that the school can proceed to build immediately without any further delay.

For months I have campaigned alongside many concerned parents to lobby the Minister to have his department issue the necessary tender, and I will continue to do so until the tender has been issued.

You can read my transcript of my debate here.