Seán Haughey (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)

The project at the school to which the Deputy refers has a complicated history from its inception as a small extension and refurbishment of the existing school through several revisions of the brief to its current brief, which is to provide a new eight-classroom school on a greenfield site. The fact that my Department has purchased a new greenfield site for the school demonstrates our commitment to the project. I accept that the project has been in architectural planning for a considerable period. However, the Deputy will appreciate that, with more than 200 other major projects progressing through architectural planning, it is not possible to move all projects to construction at the same time or even in the same year.

All applications for large-scale capital funding are assessed against published prioritisation criteria that were introduced in 2004 following consultation with the education partners. Under the criteria, each project is assigned a band rating that reflects the type of works required and the urgency attaching to them. There are four band ratings, with band one being the highest and band four the lowest. Projects are progressed in accordance with the band rating assigned to them and when funding allows. This project has a band rating of 2.2, which is consistent with its current brief.

The project is currently at an advanced stage of architectural planning. The stage 2(a) submission, which is the developed sketch design stage, was approved in July 2008. However, due to the competing demands on my Department's capital budget, it was not possible to authorise the project to progress further at that time.

The proposed building project at the school will be considered in the context of the Department's multi-annual school building and modernisation programme for 2010. While I will take account of the issues raised by the Deputy, in light of current competing demands on the capital budget of the Department, it is not possible to give an indicative timeframe for the delivery of the project at this time.

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