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

I accept the point made by Deputy Brendan Griffin and must reassure him on a couple of points. First, there is no difference in the rules applied in commuter belts or any other area. The Deputy might point to commuter belts where there have been huge explosions of population and new schools are required to respond to them. The figures will indicate that we only replaced a handful of schools last year out of the 4,000 schools across the country. It is very difficult to secure a replacement school. I can understand how people object to the procedures, but they are dictated by financial constraints. We can only stretch the money available to meet certain needs.

The same rules apply everywhere. There is the same prioritisation of technical need and the same assessment of buildings and their capacity and flaws or otherwise. We will look at these new submissions but what the Department has told the school is that it is open to new accommodation but only in the context of immediate needs. That is the position as of now and, unfortunately, I cannot give the Deputy a different answer. That is the position but we will look at the new submissions that have been made.

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