Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue because it gives me the opportunity to clarify the position in relation to the Department of Education and Skills' plans for upgrading school buildings, including St. Aidan's comprehensive school, Cootehill, County Cavan. St. Aidan's is a co-educational comprehensive school under Catholic patronage. There are currently 512 pupils enrolled in the school. This represents a decrease in enrolment of 2% in the last five years. I am pleased to advise the Deputy that a building project for the provision of a one-class special educational needs base was completed at St. Aidan's comprehensive school in early 2019, as he will be aware.

My Department's planning and building unit has subsequently received an application from St. Aidan's comprehensive school seeking further capital funding for additional school accommodation, as outlined by the Deputy, including the provision of a PE hall.

This application is currently being considered by the Department and as soon as this process has been completed, the school authority will be informed.

The Department is in receipt of an application from the school for the summer works scheme 2020 onwards for a windows project commensurate with the level of funding available through the scheme.All applications will be assessed in accordance with the prioritisation criteria outlined in the governing circular letter for the scheme. In that regard, applications submitted for other works will be considered under future rounds of the summer works scheme. St. Aidan's comprehensive school will be considered in this regard.

More generally, under the national development plan, increased funding has been provided for the school sector capital investment programme. This funding allows for a continued focus on the provision of new permanent school places to keep pace with

demographic demand and also provides for an additional focus on the refurbishment of existing school buildings to include the building and modernisation of PE facilities in post-primary schools.

As the Deputy will be aware, under Project Ireland 2040, we will invest €8.4 billion, compared to €4.9 billion in the previous decade, in primary and post-primary school buildings. This investment will see a 70% increase in the school building budget which will be targeted at delivering on the twin objectives of catering for the continued increase in demographics and a greater focus on refurbishment and upgrade of existing school stock.

The Government remains committed to delivering on existing projects on the school building programme. The immediate priority of my Department is providing 20,000 new and replacement school places each year to ensure that every child has a school place. The Government will focus, in the medium term, on the provision of PE facilities in post-primary schools.

Project Ireland 2040 provides the investment necessary to implement the commitments in the action plan for education to reform and modernisethe school curriculum by committing to a PE hall build and modernisation programme, starting in the second half of the Project Ireland 2040 period, that ensures that students in all post-primary schools have access to state of the art facilities to support PE provision, particularly in the context of the roll-out of PE as a leaving certificate subject.

During 2018 and 2019, the capital budget is facilitating extensions and new schools being delivered as part of the roll-out of Project Ireland 2040 which involved overall construction activity during 2018 and 2019 of circa 130 large-scale projects ranging in value from €1 million to projects in excess of €20 million. There was also in excess of 280 projects with a project value of less than €1 million at construction during this period. All of these projects are expected to deliver more than 40,000 permanent additional and replacement school places and replace circa 600 prefabs. This will make significant progress in providing modern energy efficient school facilities and the replacement of temporary accommodation. All new schools being constructed by my Department include the provision of PE facilities and also endeavours to include these facilities in the design of major extensions within the constraints of available funding where possible.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. Deputy Smyth has also raised this matter on a number of occasions. I welcome the opportunity to outline the position of the Department of Education and Skills and I understand that the application from St. Aidan's is under review and the Department will be in contact with the school authority directly.

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