Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Dillon for his work with me and his interest on this project. We have been in Castlebar many times and we can report real progress that it is now a university town, Mayo is now a university county and we have the Atlantic Technological University. From my engagement with the president of the university and from the Deputy directly I know how much of a difference that is already making and how much potential there is to go further to drive more courses and programmes into Castlebar. Alongside that we have the very significant milestone announcement we are going to develop a further education and training college of the future, which will be a real, modern, fit-for-purpose, flagship project for Mayo and the north west.

The Deputy monitors this closely so he will be aware that the Mayo, Sligo and Leitrim ETB has been working very closely with our agency, SOLAS, to develop the next step, called the preliminary business case, for Castlebar under the college of the future major projects fund. The development of this robust document is fundamental to moving into the next stage of requirements under the infrastructure guidelines, which used to be known as the Public Spending Code guidelines. I am really pleased to tell the Deputy the preliminary business case from the Mayo, Sligo and Leitrim Education and Training Board was submitted to SOLAS in advance of the deadline of Friday, 12 January. The board had until then to get it in and I am aware it was working extremely hard on that. These business cases and documents will now begin to be evaluated under the various criteria one would expect when it comes to the infrastructure guidelines. We will be engaging directly with the ETB once that evaluation process is completed.

Again, the Deputy knows this because he spoke to me about it previously, but parallel to the development of the business case, the Mayo, Sligo and Leitrim ETB is also working to identify its preferred site for the proposal. Much work has gone into this. Officials from my Department and SOLAS have met with the MSLETB and representatives of Mayo County Council to progress this and SOLAS and the Department now just await the outcome of this site identification process. It is good news. The next stage with the documents and the robust case is now over and good work is being done with the local authority, the ETB, my Department on SOLAS on site selection. I expect both of these to move ahead in parallel in the months ahead.

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