Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am taking this topical issue on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills. I thank the Deputy for raising the matter, as it provides me with the opportunity to outline to the House the Government's strategy for capital investment in education projects and to clarify the current position in regard to Coosan national school, County Westmeath.

The school authority submitted an application for major capital funding in 1999. As part of the assessment process, a project is assigned a band rating under published prioritisation criteria for large scale building projects. These criteria were devised following consultation with the education partners. There are four band ratings overall, of which band one is the highest and band four the lowest. The current major project for Coosan national school has been assigned a band rating of 1.1

My Department is forecasting an increase of more than 45,000 primary pupils by the start of the 2017-18 school year. The delivery of new schools together with extension projects to meet the needs of our increasing population of school going children, will be the main focus for capital investment in the coming years. The primary aim will be to ensure every child has access to a school place. The Government's medium-term infrastructure and capital investment framework, which was published this month, includes an allocation for education capital of in excess of €2.2 billion over the five years of the plan - an average annual allocation of approximately €440 million. The investment for the next five years will provide more than 100,000 permanent school places of which 80,000 will be additional school places; the remainder will be replacement of temporary or unsatisfactory accommodation. This substantial investment will result in more than 11% of the total school population benefiting from new permanent places delivered between 2012 and 2016.

Coosan national school has 13 teachers and it had 341 pupils enrolled in the 2010-11 school year. Enrolments have increased by 24% in the school over the past five years. The brief for the major capital project for the school will provide a new 16-classroom school and a two-classroom special needs unit on the existing site. The site is approximately 4.75 acres and it is located north of the gateway town of Athlone. The existing school is a single storey structure constructed in 1953. The project is currently at an early stage of architectural planning. The design team was appointed in February 2011. Officials from the planning and building unit of my Department met with the board of management as the client for the project and its design team in May to expedite the preliminary design process.

The board of management and its design team are currently finalising the stage 1, initial sketch design report, which includes examining all design options on the site to facilitate the delivery of the required accommodation. The design team has advised that all options to be considered will comply with my Department's technical requirements. As part of the stage 1, the board of management and its design team have also held pre-planning discussions with the local authority. Upon completion, the stage 1 report will be submitted by the board of management to my Department for technical review. Thereafter, and assuming no issues arise, the next steps for the project will be the completion of stage 2(a), developed sketch design, and stage 2(b), which will include applications for planning permission, disability access certificate and fire safety certificate.

The Minister has announced his intention to publish details of the school building programme for 2012 early next month. Early in the new year ,the Department will publish a five-year plan outlining the projects to be constructed in that time. All school building projects, including that for Coosan national school, will be considered as part of this process.

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