Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. It also affects schools in my constituency, as the Deputy can imagine. The Department of Education has been doing a stellar job when it comes to its capital budget. New schools and extensions are being built all over the country. What has happened is that in many ways it has been doing such a good job that it is now ahead of profile on spending its capital budgets. As the Deputy will be aware, the cost of construction has also gone up and as a result a number of school projects, as the Deputy said, have been stalled.

We will sort this out. It will take us a couple of weeks to sit down with the Department and a few other Departments that are in a similar boat. It is something we intend to have resolved, certainly before Easter. This may involve some additional capital to make sure some of the shovel-ready projects with planning permission can go ahead or the reallocation of capital across Departments. We are working on this and we will have a solution by Easter. I want people to know these schools will get the go-ahead.

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