Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I look forward to working with the Deputy on this project and many others. As she knows, the Department approved the additional school accommodation project for St. Brigids School Cabinteely. The project is devolved for delivery to the school authority and a design team has been appointed to progress the project through the necessary architectural stages of design, statutory approvals, procurement and construction. The project was initially approved to provide ten mainstream classrooms and three special education tuition rooms along with ancillary accommodation. In October 2024, my Department increased the brief of the project to include the provision for a three-classroom special education needs base.

The Department is awaiting the submission of a revised stage 1 report to include the SEN provision. Once received, this report will be reviewed, from both a technical and cost perspective in accordance with the Government's infrastructure guidelines. All projects, including this one, undergo the necessary due diligence outlined in the guidelines. The design team was initially appointed for this project in 2020. There has been a lot of back and forth on this. It has now changed again. Thankfully, additional classrooms are being provided for children with special educational needs. If we can move on to the next stage and the stage 1 report is presented to the Department, we will then be able to move on more quickly to the next stage. I cannot give a specific timeline beyond that, but once we receive the report, the Department will be able to move forward. There are a number of projects that from everybody's perspective, we want to see progressing as quickly as possible, particularly where additional accommodation is being provided to meet a specific need around special education. My Department is committed to this project and once that information is provided, we will be able to progress it further.

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