Mr. Hubert Loftus:

I thank the Deputy. I will deal with the questions about project delays and the Astroturf pitches and my colleague, Ms Cusack, will respond on east Cork and such matters.

With regard to project delays, in the past year or so, since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, we have been conscious that we are generally in a war-type environment. It has been a difficult enough construction environment in which to work. There are issues concerning construction inflation and issues can arise regarding the supply chain generally, which can have impacts at individual project level.

On where we are at generally regarding delivery, we currently have around 300 projects at construction. This is a very good and solid number. In 2022, we were targeting the delivery of 150 to 200 projects. The number is being finalised but we delivered 180-plus projects. We have had strong delivery but that is not to say there were not impacts on individual projects. Even in the Deputy's area, east Cork, the Carrigtwohill campus was long-delayed in its own way, but it is certainly one of our flagship projects owing to the sea change it will bring to the school and education infrastructure in the town. It is very important.

From the perspective of a tenderer on delivering projects, it is difficult to price projects and get them through. That can cause delays. One can have a scenario in which the first tenderer does not hold its price, meaning we have to go down to the second or third, or refresh tenders or tender again. All these factors have their own impacts but, notwithstanding that and conscious of a strong pipeline, we have been able to keep a strong flow of projects at construction and bring them to completion.

On the issue of Astroturf pitches generally, it will be more of an issue for sports clubs than the Department. As a general rule, the Department has not been overly generous over the years regarding the provision of Astroturf pitches. Provision was sporadic, for various reasons, and there were not many provided generally. The EU directive, of which I am not unaware, will have an impact but there will obviously be some sort of fade-out arrangement in that regard.

I will let Ms Cusack refer to east Cork but will first make a general comment. We are always conscious of alignment of housing provision and school provision and trying to achieve this as best as we possibly can. Regarding housing roll-out, the Deputy mentioned a number of homes in the order of 10,000. The route for managing them from a school-provision perspective involves determining the capacity in the school system as the houses are rolled out over time and the capacity that must be added to cater for additional needs. As a rule of thumb, 10,000 houses equates to a requirement for about 5,000 school places, with about 60% at primary level and 40% at post-primary level. It is a matter of working it through in terms of existing capacity and making additional capacity available. The rule of thumb can vary a little, depending on whether the 10,000 are more in the housing space than the apartment space, having regard to the types of apartments, such as one-bedroom apartments. That gives a guide for what the impact of homes might be.

I will now let Ms Cusack refer to east Cork in general.