Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I remind members and witnesses to please turn off their mobile phones or switch them to flight mode.

The purpose of this part of the meeting is to have an engagement with officials from the Department of Education and Skills on the matter of the lapse in time between the announcement of the construction of new schools and the time at which their construction is completed. On behalf of the committee, I welcome Mr. Hubert Loftus, assistant secretary general in the planning and building division in the Department of Education and Skills; Ms Helen O'Neill, technical manager in the professional and technical section of the Department of Education and Skills; and Mr. Brian Power, principal officer in the forward planning section in the Department of Education and Skills. I appreciate the representatives' presence at the earlier session as it will have given them an understanding of the frustration felt by three schools in particular that are representative of other schools experiencing issues. I thank them for attending as they are helping us throw light on the blockages, how we can deal with them and, collectively, go forward in trying to ensure that issues such as these do not arise again. I thank them also for trying to help those three schools to solve their particular issues.

As for the format of the meeting, I will invite the witnesses to make brief opening statements. I thank them for the written submission they gave to the committee. That will be followed by an engagement with members of the committee. I assume all three witnesses will make a brief statement.