The Dublin west area, comprising greater Blanchardstown, Mulhuddart, Castleknock and Littlepace/Ongar, has been the fastest growing area in Europe in terms of population and housing for quite a number of years now.
Incredibly, however, the government has dismally failed to provide the necessary infrastructure that rapidly expanding communities need. Apart from the traffic crisis due to a lack of proper public transport, the infrastructure deficit is dramatically reflected in a crisis of school places at both primary and secondary levels.
The Principal of Castleknock Community College has informed public representatives that 59 pupils due to start secondary school this September cannot be accommodated. This is because the school has reached its capacity at 1,106 pupils. The Department of Education has been well aware of this situation for a number of years.
The fact is that Dublin west urgently needs two more secondary schools – one for the Castleknock area and another for Littlepace/ Ongar. A demand for second level places from Tyrrelstown will also be a reality within a few years. Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, has said that the school for Littlepace/ Ongar will go ahead, but won’t give a date. However this school is needed now – not in four years time.
Places for children at primary level are also in a shambles. As enrolments for this September begin, there will again be a shortfall of places. While some of this is accounted for by parents booking a child into two schools in case they don’t get their first choice, there is a clear need for urgent action. Children from Ongar, where thousands of houses and apartments have been built in recent years, currently have to go to school in a temporary classroom on the grounds of Littlepace Primary School. Children from Tyrrelstown have to be bussed miles away to Blanchardstown as the pre-fab classrooms on a temporary site in the estate cannot accommodate them all. The Department of Education says that a permanent site has now been purchased in Tyrrelstown and that all the children will be able to move there this September.
Parents in Mulhuddart had a bombshell dropped recently when it was proposed that Mulhuddart primary school be phased out. However, after protests by parents it now seems that this will not be implemented.
The crisis situation facing many parents and pupils in Dublin west arises directly from decades of planning mismanagement in the State. Apart from the direct corruption that has been revealed, the fact that Fianna Fáil in particular was so close to developers and big builders meant that they were allowed to dictate. They were able to construct vast new areas of housing, often making obscene profits, and then walk away from the new communities, leaving a massive vacuum in infrastructure. Ongar and Tyrrelstown don’t even have a community centre!
The provision of school sites is also more complicated because they have to be bought from the developers who try to charge a fortune for them. Developers will refuse to sell the sites at a cheaper rate unless they can squeeze planning concessions from the local authorities. Meanwhile children and their parents suffer the consequences of the delay. Obviously the sites for necessary infrastructure should be subject to compulsory purchase at agricultural land prices at most.
More generally the size of classes in primary schools is causing great anxiety to teachers and parents. How important this issue is for people is shown by the very large attendance at public meetings organised by the primary teachers’ union, the INTO.
Incredibly, Ireland has the second highest class size in the EU. Fingal has the highest percentage (37%) of primary pupils in classes of over 29. It beggars belief that countries like Latvia and Lithuania can have an average class size of 17.2 and 15.2 respectively but that Ireland, with among the highest Gross Domestic Product per capita in the world, stands at 24!
Clearly a very major system change is needed where the enormous wealth generated by working people is channelled into benefiting society, including major investment in education, other than swelling the super-profits of speculators, developers, bankers and big business interests.
