Fine Gael TD for Dublin West, Leo Varadkar secured a special ‘adjournment debate’ in Dail last night to discuss the lack of progress in securing a permanent school site for Mulhuddart National School and Tyrrelstown Educate Together.  A six acre site to the north of the existing village centre in Tyrrelstown has been identified and the landowner has offer to sell it to the authorities for a nominal €1.

However, progress on securing the site has been painfully slow with the Department of Education, Fingal County Council and the developer all blaming each other for the delay.  Tyrrelstown Educate Together has already confirmed that it will only be able to accept one new class in September 2010 if progress is not made.  The debate was also addressed by Joan Burton TD of the Labour Party and Martin Mansergh TD, the Minister for the Office of Public Works, responded for the government.

“Department officials recently met with senior officials from the local authority and in particular discussed the need to close on the Tyrelsstown site as a matter of urgency. The Minister is satisfied that the local authority shares the Department’s sense of urgency. The Minister would also like to confirm to the House that the required building project will receive top priority in the Department and has instructed Department officials to consider the scope for providing the schools under its modular building programme, which should result in the schools being completed earlier than normally would be expected.”

It is unclear when installation of the new modular classrooms will commence. Because prefabricated classrooms are constructed off site without the need for a full scale construction site with site offices, once the site for the school and classrooms has been agreed upon the project will completed swiftly.