The Department of Education says it cannot guarantee school places for an estimated 2,800 children living at the proposed Adamstown development in Lucan.
An oral hearing by An Bord Pleanála in Dublin heard yesterday that four schools were provided for in the Adamstown draft plan. However, while each would have a maximum of 36 classrooms, the plan allowed for developers to begin building new phases of Adamstown once they had supplied an eight-classroom school in the previous phase.
Residents believe there is a "real danger" developers may opt to provide the minimum amount of facilities and infrastructure at Adamstown, leading to serious long-term problems for quality of life in the area.
Ms Paula Nerney, representing the Department of Education's school planning section, said a number of variables, not simply population, would dictate the number and size of schools at Adamstown.
"We will do everything in our power to deliver schools, I can't say much more than that. We will have to take resources into account," she said.
Ms Nerney said three primary schools and one secondary were included in the draft plan. Based on pupil figures in Drogheda, which is similar in size to the mooted Adamstown scheme, it was expected that the Department would need to cater for 2,784 pupils.
However, by the time Adamstown is complete, the pupil numbers at Lucan schools may have peaked, resulting in fewer places being needed.
The Deliver It Right Group, a collection of residents' organisations opposed to aspects of the scheme, said that because Adamstown was in the parish of Esker, where schools were currently oversubscribed, pupils from there would be entitled to attend Adamstown schools.
South Dublin County Council (SDCC), which backs the Adamstown proposal, said that securing sites for schools would be a matter between landowners and the Department, not the council.
However, Mr Paul Hogan, a senior executive planner with SDCC, said the phased nature of the development meant that if schools were not built when planned, the entire scheme would have to stop.
The draft plan provides for one school to be built after the construction of 800 homes in phase one. However, a second school would not be built until phase four, of 13, by which time more than 3,000 homes would have been built.
Green Party TD Mr Paul Gogarty said there existed in the Department of Education "levels of incompetence you haven't even imagined". Because of this, there was "no confidence" that the required number of school places would be provided unless the phasing system dealing with schools was "tightened up".
Independent councillor Mr Derek Keating said that unless "education facilities are clearly written in, Adamstown should not be built".
Yesterday's proceedings also heard submissions from Dublin Bus and Iarnród Éireann. Mr Derry O'Leary, from Dublin Bus, said the company supported Adamstown. It had already entered talks with Chartridge Ltd, a consortium of developers, on how the developers could help fund new bus routes to Adamstown.
Dublin Bus believes "40 or 45" new buses would be sufficient to service Adamstown. However, if the "four tracking" of the Dublin-Kildare train line was not in place by 2009, as planned, up to 60 buses might be needed.
Mr Fergal Lalor, Iarnród Éireann's project manager for the Kildare Route Project, said the company envisaged no technical problems with four-tracking the Dublin-Kildare line. A strip of around 20 metres wide would need to be taken from Adamstown to accommodate the two new tracks. However, adding the tracks would depend on the availability of funding, he said.
