Politics

Simon Harris: Stress and strain parents have been put under amid school place shortages is utterly unnecessary

Mr Harris was responding to questions about a report that more than 80 children across five counties are tutored at home because of their inability to secure places at local schools

Simon Harris was speaking at an event in Dublin to mark the launch of a number of new third-level courses for students with intellectual disabilities. Photograph: Gareth Chaney/Collins
Simon Harris was speaking at an event in Dublin to mark the launch of a number of new third-level courses for students with intellectual disabilities. Photograph: Gareth Chaney/Collins
Emmet Malone
Fri Feb 09 2024 - 19:24

Officials at the Department of Education need to “get much better at planning and much better at forward projection” Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris said, after it emerged that around 70 children in the Greystones area are without school places for next September due to overcrowding.

Stressing that he did not blame his Government colleague, Minister for Education Norma Foley, for the issue, Mr Harris said “there are units specifically within the department that have a role in relation to planning projection population, and they’ve gotten it wrong in relation to my hometown and I’m not best pleased about it, nor my constituents”.

I understand the demographic bulge and pressures may be changing

“The stress and strain that they have placed on my friends, my neighbours and my constituents in Greystones is utterly unacceptable.

“I understand the demographic bulge and pressures may be changing. I get that. But even within that there are areas of this country that are going to see massive population growth and my constituency is one of them. The greater commuter belt is one as well.

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“The stress and strain that parents have been put up under this year and some remain under today is utterly unnecessary.”

Mr Harris was responding to questions about a report in The Irish Times that more than 80 children across five counties are tutored at home because of their inability to secure places at local schools.

He said a meeting between constituency representatives and department officials on Thursday evening had yielded assurances regarding measures to address the issue and that one school in his area, Greystones Community College, had been able to commit to the provision of some additional places on Friday morning.

There was a wider problem, he acknowledged, however, with that school waiting on a permanent new building despite the land required having been purchased and the tenders for construction having come back in. “That tender needs to be awarded,” he said.

[ Oversubscribed schools may get temporary classrooms to ease enrolment ‘crisis’ ]

Elsewhere in the area, he said, “another school, Temple Carrig… they have a design for extension that needs to progress and Coláiste Chraobh Abhann is bursting at the seams and looking for an extension”.

He said there had been record levels of investment in secondary schools but “it’s an awful lot easier to ask a school to assist if the Department of Education are assisting them as well. And that partnership approach needs to be forthcoming.”

Mr Harris was speaking at an event in Dublin to mark the launch of a number of new third-level courses for students with intellectual disabilities.

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Emmet Malone

Emmet Malone

Emmet Malone is Work Correspondent at The Irish Times