Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

What the school has been told is not delightful but potentially disastrous. It must reapply for planning permission and it has been informed that the costs of the project have increased by 61%. If some of the funding the Government has been lashing around for the strategic communications unit had been spent on schools such as St. Patrick's, the new building would probably have been completed at this stage. Instead, the money has been spent on newspaper advertorials.

As the Minister pointed out, a new date of commencement has been set. The Minister informed me previously that the works would commence early in 2017 but he informed just now that the date has been moved back to 2019. St. Patrick's school, Corduff, is a DEIS school in an area of significant economic difficulty where many parents are out of work. Under the previous Government, of which the Minister and I were members, many schools were built in the area. St. Patrick's school is the only one outstanding and for some reason the Minister has no interest in it.

See this speech in context