Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputies Ring and Cooper-Flynn for raising this matter. The Deputies will appreciate that despite €540 million being spent this year on school building projects, there are 4,000 schools in the State. Ensuring that we modernise and provide schools in rapidly growing areas is a priority. In the next several years, €4.5 billion will be invested in our schools. This year, 1,500 schools will have building projects undertaken.

The original application from Midfield national school applied for an extension and refurbishment to provide improved ancillary accommodation such as resource rooms and general purpose rooms. Priority is always given to schools with increasing numbers seeking additional accommodation. As the original application did not include an application for additional mainstream classrooms, it was given a lower priority rating. Subsequently, the application was changed and submitted under the small schools scheme for additional mainstream accommodation. Unfortunately, this year the volume of applications received meant it was not possible to allocate funding to all of the different projects. Midfield national school was not successful on this occasion but it has appealed the decision. That appeal is under active consideration by the planning and building section of the Department. The school will be notified in due course as to the decision.

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