Mr. Hubert Loftus:

The Deputy's first, more general question is a valid question to ask. Traditionally, the approach has been to rely on schools coming to the Department with their issues and us dealing with them as best we can within the parameters available to us. More generally, as part of the reforms we are doing in the planning building unit, we are moving into a more proactive regime. There are a number of elements to that. It is not just related to conditions. Looking at the whole area of special needs and adding special needs capacity into the system, that is primarily driven by the Department and the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, identifying needs, co-ordinating where best to deliver them, and then contacting schools on it as distinct from asking schools to put their hands up. That is just one example of that.

As for condition issues and things like that, the direction of travel as to where this will best get addressed is as part of the climate agenda and rolling out the decarbonisation programme. As part and parcel of that we have commenced doing an inventory of an energy audit of schools which picks up on condition issues in schools. The schools across five counties have been done as regards that and we envisage the balance of those to be done over the course of 2024-2025. That will give us the full complete picture of condition issues across the school estate. That will then enable us, particularly with a climate lens but it is relevant otherwise as well, to focus where best to target that investment, if we have for example €50 million, €100 million or whatever million euros on the climate side of things, irrespective of what school it is and not necessarily relying on that school. That is just one aspect of that.

Another relevant element is in terms of patrons and we will now link in more strategically with patrons as regards identifying issues so we are not just relying on individual schools. I do not agree with the Deputy's comments on fire safety issues. We certainly do a lot of work in that area. There is an emergency work scheme for any school that has particular concerns. It is an area that we also have-----