Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Department has a considerable record in the delivery of schools buildings. More than 180 projects were completed last year to the highest standards. This year alone 300 school building projects are on hand, including 40 new school buildings and 260 projects of additional accommodation of various types. Under Project Ireland 2040, we are investing €4.4 billion between now and 2025 to add capacity and develop and upgrade school facilities throughout the country for the almost 1 million students and 100,000 staff who attend our schools. Key priorities for the Department are supporting the operation of the school system and adding necessary capacity to cater for special education needs provision, mainstream demographics and catering for students from Ukraine and other countries under the international protection system.

As the Deputy will be aware, an agreement was secured with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform in recent weeks to guarantee and support the roll-out and continuation of the Department’s ambitious school building programme. The agreement reached on 5 April is facilitating the continued roll-out of urgently required school building projects in mainstream and special education settings, including projects that were temporarily paused. Officials from the Department have updated each of these schools on the formal arrangements and the next steps in respect of the delivery of their individual projects. The current status of all projects is listed on a county-by-county basis on gov.ieand is updated on a regular basis.

I wish to clarify that the school project to which the Deputy refers was not one of the projects temporarily paused due to capital funding pressures. The Department approved funding for the school under the additional school accommodation scheme. The project will provide two en suite mainstream classrooms and the responsibility for delivery of the project is devolved to the school itself. The project is at the design stage of the architectural planning process. The professional and technical officials in the Department have reviewed the school's design team submission and their recommendations have been shared with the school authority. Officials are engaging directly with the school to assist it in this regard to ensure this important project is progressed to the next stage of architectural planning and delivered as quickly as possible.

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