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

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.