Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am responding to the Deputies who have raised this Topical Issue on behalf of my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Quinn. I thank the Deputies for giving me an opportunity to outline the Government's strategy for capital investment in education projects over the next five years and to clarify the current position in respect of the provision of new building at Newpark Comprehensive School in Blackrock, County Dublin. The building project at the school has been included in the five-year construction programme and is scheduled to commence construction in 2015-16. It is one of 275 projects which have been scheduled to commence construction over the five years of the programme. In scheduling when each project can proceed to construction, the Department has to take account of the funding available annually and the requirement to provide additional school places to meet the increasing demographic needs the Minister outlined when he launched the programme. In summary, those demographic needs involve a total national enrolment which is expected to grow by around 70,000 students between now and 2018. This will entail an increase of over 45,000 at primary level and 25,000 at post-primary, while second level enrolment is expected to continue to rise thereafter until at least 2024. As the Deputies may be aware, in June 2011 the Minister announced that 20 new post-primary schools are to be established up to 2017 across a number of locations to cater for the increasing student numbers at post-primary level alone - that is 20 new schools which are currently not in existence.

The design of the proposed new school building for Newpark comprehensive has been developed based on a long-term projected enrolment of at least 800 students - the current enrolment is 831. A stage 2(b) submission was received in the Department on 4 May and is currently under review. Once that review is complete, the Department will be in contact with the school authority. However, due to the financial constraints imposed by the need to prioritise the funding available each year for the provision of new school accommodation to meet the increasing demographic requirements, the project for Newpark comprehensive has been scheduled to commence construction in 2015-16.

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