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

The major project for St. Patrick's special school, Enniscorthy, which will provide replacement facilities for the school, is included in the Department of Education and Skills's construction programme. The project will provide for 20 classrooms and will include such facilities as special teacher rooms, multi-sensory, physiotherapy and occupational therapy rooms and a nurse's area and the provision of ball courts, external dining area and a garden play area.

As a replacement project, this school project was not initially included in the Department's five-year construction plan, due to the focus in that plan on providing additional accommodation in areas of significant demographic growth. In 2015, the project for the school was brought into the programme and has been advanced within the architectural planning process since.

While it would have been expected that this project would have progressed more quickly, it was delayed due to departmental revisions to its technical guidance documents and owing to staff changes internally. In July 2017 the stage 2b, detailed design, was approved and a process to carry out a short-listing of suitably qualified building contractors and subcontractors was commenced. The relevant short-listing contract notices were posted to the Official Journal of the European Union, OJEU, and the Government's eTenders website on 27 September and 8 October, respectively. This process encountered a short delay due to the revisions to the technical guidance documents, arising from changes to the public works contract which came into effect this year.

My Department is fully committed to the delivery of this project and will appoint an external consultant architect to oversee the project when it progresses to construction. It is anticipated that following the tender process to appoint a building contractor, this project will go on site and commence construction in the first half of 2018.

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