Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

I apologise for the absence of the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin, who is unavoidably absent owing to other commitments. I thank the Deputy for raising the matter of the application for capital funding for Scoil Ruain, Killenaule, County Tipperary. I am happy to be able to outline to him where the project stands in the context of the huge amount of capital works being undertaken by the Department of Education and Science under the schools building and modernisation programme.

Modernising facilities in our 3,200 primary and 750 post-primary schools is not an easy task, given the legacy of decades of under-investment in this area as well as the need to respond to emerging needs in areas of rapid population growth. Nonetheless, since taking office, the Government has shown a sincere determination to improve the condition of our school buildings and to ensure that the appropriate facilities are in place to enable the implementation of a broad and balanced curriculum.

The Government has invested in the largest school building programme in the history of the State. Between 1998 and the end of 2004, almost €2 billion was invested in school buildings and in the region of 7,500 large and small projects were completed in schools, including 130 brand new schools and 510 large-scale refurbishments and extensions. Funding for school building and renovation projects has increased fivefold since 1997. In 2006, €491 million will be spent on school building projects, compared with just €92 million in 1997. The 2006 allocation is, in its own right, an increase of more than 9% in real terms on the 2005 allocation.

As the Deputy will be aware, at the end of last year the Department of Education and Science outlined its spending plans for primary and post-primary schools for 2006. With €491 million to be spent on school buildings, there will be over 1,300 projects active in schools all over the country. This significant investment will allow the Department to continue to progress its major programme of school building and modernisation which includes improving equipment needed for new technologies and ICT.

The school in question applied to the Department of Education and Science for capital funding for the development of a PE hall. The Department fully recognises the crucial role of physical exercise within the school environment and it is committed to funding the provision of PE, general purpose and outdoor play areas in schools as part of the schools' capital investment programme. As with any application for capital funding, applications for the provision of PE or sports facilities in existing schools must be considered in the context of all other applications on hand for capital investment, such as applications for new schools, refurbishment projects, extensions, new sites, remediation programmes and so on. This is done in the context of available resources and the published criteria for prioritising school building projects.

I will briefly explain and summarise these criteria which show the self-evident logic of how projects are selected for inclusion in a school building programme. There are four band ratings under the criteria, with band 1 being the highest and band 4 the lowest in terms of priorities. Band 1 consists of projects for new schools and extensions to schools in rapidly developing areas, accommodation for special needs students, projects for schools that are structurally unsound and rationalisation projects. Band 2 projects range from major extensions to address mainstream accommodation deficits and extensive to moderate refurbishments to existing schools to maintain the integrity of buildings. Band 3 projects deal with the provision of ancillary accommodation and improvement works for other than special education accommodation. Band 4 includes all other project types, for example PE halls, general purpose rooms, etc.

Not alone are these criteria open and transparent but they were revised in recent times following consultation with the education partners to ensure that they are tuned to meet the many challenges presenting for the school building programme. These include the needs of rapidly developing areas where little or no accommodation exists, the accommodation requirements for the massive expansion in teacher numbers, the need to cater for both diversity and our special needs pupils, not to mention tackling the historical under investment in our existing school building stock.

The PE hall project for the school in question been assigned a band 4 rating under the prioritisation criteria. Over the past five years, however, enrolments have fallen at the school by 15%. The Department of Education and Science is revisiting the school's application for the purposes of drawing up long-term projected enrolment. While this will not have the effect of changing the band rating for the PE hall project, it will ensure that the project is properly assessed for inclusion in the school building and modernisation programme at the appropriate time.

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