Mr. Hubert Loftus:

I will make a couple of points. We are not against the idea of a new school in principle, if we think that is warranted. Our approach and logic is purely based on looking at the capacity of the existing school system, what is coming down the tracks in terms of additionality in housing, as the Deputy has referenced, the direction of travel in the existing enrolments, and working that through in a statistical and scientific basis to determine if that justifies a need or not. That is important. We do not do that in isolation, sitting in Tullamore. We work closely with the local authority and look at the direction of travel generally and the timelines around that, which is important. I do not have the details on the specific east Cork issue, which is the Deputy's particular interest, but the investment the Department of Education has provided in Cork is of the order of the guts of half a billion euro over the last five years. We have completed 100 projects and there are 27 currently at construction stage. I accept that those do not relate specifically to east Cork, but Carrigtwohill, which was referenced earlier, is one of our flagship projects. It is a campus site that is very important for the infrastructure of the area of east Cork.