Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My Department’s capital allocation for the school building purposes is €540 million in 2018 and this will increase by 15.2% in 2019 to €622 million.

This is facilitating an ambitious schools building programme. Construction activity in 2018 and 2019 will involve over 130 large-scale projects and about 280 smaller-scale projects under the additional accommodation scheme. These projects will deliver about 40,000 additional and replacement school places; the replacement of more than 600 prefabs which is a key element of our prefab-replacement programme; enhanced sports facilities through the construction and modernisation of 48 physical education halls at post-primary level and 82 general purpose rooms at primary level. The enhancement and modernisation of physical education, PE, facilities in schools will also facilitate community usage of these facilities; and more than 200 modern science laboratories which will support the delivery of the reformed science curricula and the roll-out of computer science as a leaving certificate subject.

As part of the significantly expanded building programme, the current design and build programme to cater for urgent accommodation needs is being ramped up. In the past this programme delivered an average of 12 new schools per year. The current programme involves 27 projects in design that are scheduled to commence construction before the end of 2019.

The Government remains committed to delivering on existing projects in the school building programme as soon as possible. I am satisfied that the €8.4 billion investment available under the National Development Plan 2018-2027 will enable us to modernise and transform our school infrastructure in 2019 and in the years ahead.

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