THE Minister for Education has announced that she will make available a suitable site for the Crumlin Multi Denominational School adjacent to Griffith College in south Dublin.
In a statement yesterday Ms Breathnach said that the Office of Public Works and the Department of Finance had agreed to make the site available to her to lease to the school. It had been inspected by a Department of Education architect, who had approved it for school use, and the Department would help the school to obtain planning permission.
It is understood that the site consists of an empty lot on which the Department intends to place a number of prefabricated buildings for use by the school.
The school's two teachers and 33 children are currently located in a Georgian house in Inchicore, from which property developers are trying to evict them. The house is a constant target of vandalism. Before that, the school was in a disused factory in Kilmainham.
Since last June parents have been lobbying the Department of Education to find a suitable, permanent site. They have argued that the Crumlin school is a test of Ms Breathnach's commitment to making multi denominational education available to working class people, who do not have the same resources to start such a school as their middle class counterparts.
The chairman of the school's board of management, Mr Tom Canning, said last night that there had been no consultation about the proposed Griffith College site. He had only been told of the Minister's decision by a junior official.
The principal of the school, Mr Tom Conaty, also said he had received no communication from the Department about the Minister's announcement. "Obviously, while I welcome it, we can't be euphoric about something we know nothing about", he said. "How can I make a response when I don't know whether it's a quarter acre or a half acre site, whether it's serviced, or whether it's permanent or temporary?
He wondered what had become of an earlier site at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, which he had walked a month ago with an architect from the Department of Education.
In her statement, Ms Breathnach said that during the past six months the Department had been working closely with Educate Together to secure a site for the school. However, Ms Deirdre O'Donoghue, of Educate Together, said she was surprised that the first she had heard of the Minister's announcement yesterday was from someone outside the Department.