Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On the Donegal school, I understand that the design team is finalising the stage two report. It would not, therefore, be appropriate for me to meet the school representatives until they have finalised that and given it to the Department. There will certainly be stakeholders' meetings but at this stage I do not think there is any point in me meeting them because the ball is in their court in terms of coming back on the design.

On the more general issue, I was opposition spokesperson on education in the past when the former Minister, Noel Dempsey, was in office. There was a long list of various stages that schools had reached and they could spend years in the early stages before moving up. It is felt that was less clear than what is in place at the moment. Currently, there is a five-year programme and schools know whether they are in it. Therefore, they have more certainty about how quickly they will proceed.

We are now working on the next five-year programme which is due to commence next year. In that context, we could have a discussion on whether we should give more information than what is in the five-year programme. However, we can only commit in terms of the capital envelope which we only get for five years. I do not want to mislead schools by putting them into a list which does not indicate that anything will happen.

As regards the planning issue, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, is responsible for that area. I have engaged with him concerning it. We want to keep the planning process absolutely transparent, as it should be. However, there is a case for avoiding unnecessary delays in the case of schools which are in the public interest. Those discussions are ongoing.

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