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

I am pleased to advise the Deputy that my Department's capital programme continues to address the challenge posed by a rapidly increasing school population. To meet this demographic challenge, my Department's six-year construction programme for 2016-21 details 310 school projects that are being progressed through the architectural planning process towards tender and construction. The programme will fund the construction of over 62,000 additional school places as well as the completion of large-scale projects that were contained in my Department's five-year plan from 2012 to 2016. I also wish to advise the Deputy that in the four-year period from 2012 to 2016, 178 large-scale projects contained in the programmes were completed, including 50 school projects in 2016. These projects provided 52,062 additional permanent school places and 14,951 replacement school places.

Of the total capital expenditure of €530 million expended on the school building programme in 2016, almost 80% of the expenditure was on the delivery of permanent school places. On 1 January 2017, there were 67 major projects under construction. In addition, there are a further 35 school projects that are expected to proceed to construction in the course of the year. This represents a total of 102 major projects either under construction or progressing to commence construction in 2017.

As the Deputy will appreciate, the success of the schools building programme is predicated on the need to ensure that at any given time, there are sufficient number of school projects available to proceed to construction. If this is not the case, there is the risk that capital monies made available for the purpose of accommodating children at primary and post-primary level cannot be spent and that the State cannot provide for school buildings at maximum capacity. Given that any number of issues can arise at any stage up to construction stage in the process of building schools, it is essential that other projects can be progressed if individual projects are delayed for whatever reason. This can also however have the contrary result that there may be more school projects available to proceed to construction than the available budgetary position will allow.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

The action plan for education sets out the Government ambitions for the education system, including the commitment contained in the programme for Government, towards the prioritisation of school educational infrastructure.

My Department will fully engage with the mid-term capital review to be conducted by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform over the coming months. In doing so, my Department will be stressing the increasing costs of providing permanent school accommodation and the opportunities which the school building programme presents for productive capital expenditure in this much needed area of the economy.

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