Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To reassure Deputy Stanley, my Department is taking an active role on this. All relevant technical issues have now been addressed and the Department is optimistic that the landowner's consent will be forthcoming. As Deputy Stanley will be aware, the project involves the construction, on a greenfield site, of a post-primary school building to cater for 850 pupils and an issue had to be resolved before a planning application could be submitted. To reassure Deputy Burton, this is not some tactic within the Department to delay worthy projects. In this instance, a genuine issue had to be resolved.

The position of each school is available on the website of my Department. When schools are released to commence the detailed design process, that is tracked. However, sometimes those design processes run into unforeseen problems due to issues - in this case, drainage - which may arise and which, obviously, influences the pace at which they proceed.

I assure the Deputy that every penny we get is always spent. We have a very strong process of making sure that we have a pipeline available to use the resources as fully and as effectively as possible.

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