Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On page 92 of the programme for Government a commitment is indicated to deliver a school capital investment programme for extensions and refurbishments to cater for the provision of additional school places with significant funding secured as part of the capital plan. Shortly after it was included in the programme for Government, in 2017 Fine Gael politicians in west Cork announced that the Department of Education and Skills had approved the provision of permanent accommodation for St. Brogan's College in Bandon. They indicated that it was to include four mainstream classrooms and two resource teaching rooms. Even the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, in answering at the time in place of the Taoiseach stated the provision of the extension had been given the green light for the allocation of funding by the Department of Education and Skills and the Government. We are close to 2020 and not one shovel of earth has been turned at St. Brogan's College in Bandon. This is leaving the school and parents in Bandon and surrounding areas in another nightmare scenario as there will be no room at the school for many pupils who will have to go elsewhere. Were the people of Bandon misled and why have the four mainstream classrooms and two resource teaching rooms not been built as promised three years ago?

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