Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy appears to have gone to Mayo. He will be aware, however, from responses to previous parliamentary questions that my Department has been actively pursuing the acquisition of a suitable site for the school referred to and I am pleased to inform the House that the property management section of the Office of Public Works, which acts on behalf of my Department regarding site purchase, has agreed the purchase of a suitable site and is awaiting receipt of contracts from the vendor's solicitor.

In the budget last week the Minister for Finance provided €3.908 billion in capital funding for the education sector over the next five years, either through direct funding or for delivery using public-private partnerships. This time last year I set out in overall terms my plans for the year ahead and since then, on a rolling basis, I have provided details of individual schools which would benefit under the various strands of the programme. I am adopting a similar approach this year and I will shortly outline my plans for the year ahead under each element of the schools building and modernisation programme. The Deputy will appreciate that within the overall building programme, the timing of an announcement in procuring the new building for this school will depend on the legal finalisation of the site acquisition.

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