Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It took 45 months from the appointment of a design team in March 2012 to complete the Temple Carrig School in County Wicklow. The school sought an extension and a design team was appointed in 2021 but the school is still at the first stage 37 months later. People at the school estimate it will take them six years from beginning to end to add an extension whereas it only took half that time to build the school.

Mr. Loftus has talked about a pipeline. Does the Department ration the different stages of build by budget? Does the Department not let projects progress from stage 1 to stage 2? Does the Department look at the budget the whole time? I ask these questions because it feels like that is what happens. It takes an inordinate length of time to build and in locations that have a rapidly growing population the lead-in time is incredibly long. These are very big projects and the Department needs to do them right. There have been scenarios where projects have not been got right. How can a project that is urgent get stuck at design stage for so long that the Department must provide prefabs? Such a policy adds to costs.