Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. There is also an issue, which I have raised with some of the Minister's officials in the last weeks. Knockanean National School in County Clare is one of a handful of 12 schools in the country that are to have their new builds led by the Office of Public Works. The Knockanean school was one of these. The project is at a very advanced stage and is with the devolved project section of the Department of Education. The new build is not the problem here really. The school needs to decant off site and to go down the road to a place called Gorteen. To do that they need temporary accommodation across a whole car park area. The school needs to relocate so that a new build can happen. They are waiting on sign off from the devolved unit. Ordinarily schools can sit back for a certain amount of time, they can wait and they can sit it out. It can be frustrating. In this case there is a particular worry because the planning permission could run out. This was a very complex planning case. Many of us in the county fear that if planning runs out and we will have to go back to the beginning all over again, we could end up with a protracted process with the local authority and with An Bord Pleanála. The delay of a few months now could become a few years.

I appreciate the Minister will not have the answer here today as I am only asking now, but will she ask the devolved project section to look at this school. They are going to have to approve it anyway. The ask is to approve it in the next couple of weeks. If we wait until March, which has been suggested, we are at a really high risk of outrunning the planning permission and the whole project, which is already funded, falling by the wayside.