Frank Fahey (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

As the Deputy has said, under the permanent accommodation scheme 2005 the school authority was offered funding of €300,000. It was agreed that this would not proceed and the school would be delivered by the traditional method, in line with the project's priority band rating.

Officials in the Department of Education and Science have recently completed their reassessment of projected enrolments and have determined that the long-term projected staffing for St. Catherine's national school in Aughrim will be for a principal and eight mainstream teachers and this has been notified to the school authorities. The project will be progressed in the context of the school building and modernisation programme. I will inform the Minister for Education and Science of the views expressed by the Deputy about the very poor condition of the school. We will ask the Minister to try to have the project team visit the school as quickly as possible with a view to starting the architectural planning work.

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