Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter as it provides me with the opportunity to outline to the House, on behalf of the Minister for Education and Science, the position regarding the proposed building project for Ballymahon vocational school, County Longford.

I will outline the procedures involved in selecting school building projects for inclusion in a school building programme. All applications for large-scale capital funding are assessed in the planning and building unit of the Department in accordance with published prioritisation criteria, which were formulated following consultation with the education partners. Under the criteria, individual applications are assigned a band rating which reflects the nature of the works required. There are four band ratings overall, with band 1 being the highest and band 4 the lowest. Progress on individual projects is consistent with the assigned band rating.

The band rating system was introduced to ensure openness and transparency in the allocation of capital funding to school infrastructural projects, target funding at the most urgently required projects first and ensure an orderly flow of projects through the school building and modernisation programme based on the priority of need presenting. Projects are selected for inclusion in any given capital programme on this basis. In other words, a building project moves through the system based on the band rating assigned to it, with the highest band rated projects moving first because the type of work required is the most urgent.

On the proposed building project referred to by the Deputy, Ballymahon vocational school is a co-educational post-primary school with a current enrolment of 156 pupils and enrolments have remained static over the last five years. The school does not have a deficit of mainstream accommodation but requires improvement works to be carried out to the existing school building. A design team has been appointed to this project and stage 2 of architectural planning has been approved, subject to certain technical requirements being adhered to.

Subsequent to the appointment of a design team, Longford VEC submitted an application for approval to acquire additional lands as part of the project. Although the additional lands are desirable, they are not essential to the project and this application was refused. As to when the project can proceed further, the Department's priorities for budgetary expenditure this year have to be for schools which have no mainstream accommodation and this project along with other projects will be considered in that context.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. The Government has invested heavily in extending and upgrading our existing school stock in recent years because it has a full appreciation of the need to ensure that all our schools have adequate facilities. The Minister and her Department are committed to providing suitable high quality accommodation for Ballymahon vocational school at the earliest possible date.

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