Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I raised a Topical Issue on 6 April. At that time, the concern of the board of management and the parents association was the detailed stage 2b submission and the Department had not given permission for the pre-tender qualification process to commence in tandem with the examination of the submission. That evening, I requested the Minister to ask the Department to issue the approval in respect of commencing the pre-qualification process. I want to record that the next day, the Department contacted me to say that approval had issued to the school to allow both processes proceed in tandem. I appreciate that.

The Department sought clarification from the school's consultants on a number of points about the stage 2b detailed submission. Those questions have been answered. All the data has been returned to the Department. If I was to paraphrase the representations I have received from members of the board of management, the parents association, the principal and staff it would be that they want this particular stage finalised as quickly as possible. They want the project to proceed to the next stage. None of us are talking about taking shortcuts. We fully appreciate that where major projects are about to proceed to construction, processes have to be completed in a proper manner. However, I cannot emphasise enough the need to ensure that the examination of this stage 2b process is concluded as rapidly as possible so that the Minister will be able to issue approval to the school for the project to proceed to construction stage.

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