Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

At the outset, I wish to say that my Department has a strong track record of delivery. Since 2020, my Department has invested more than €6 billion in our schools throughout the country under the national development plan. As I mentioned earlier, this involves the completion of over 1,300 school building projects. Given the fact that there are 4,000 schools across the country, the delivery of 1,300 school projects over the last number of years is a significant achievement.

In July, the Government announced a capital allocation of €7.55 billion for the Department of Education and Youth out to 2030 under the national development plan. As part of this allocation, my Department will place a strong emphasis on a number of things, including the provision of special education for children and the development of new special schools. It is about making sure that our new builds have provisions for special education but also, on top of that, that there is additional accommodation within that where we need to provide special classes within mainstream schools that currently do not have them. There will be a particular focus on meeting annual school place needs. Where there is a growth in demographics, it is important that we be able to respond to that, whether it be a new building that is needed or an expansion of a current school place. For those schools not in permanent buildings, such as those in my constituency or the schools referenced earlier that are in temporary or modular accommodation, we need to ensure we are able to deliver new schools for those communities as quickly as possible.

Over 300 school building projects, including 38 new schools, are currently in construction to deliver more than 30,000 school places. Most of these projects are expected to be completed over the course of 2026 and 2027. On top of that, it is planned that approximately 80 further school building projects will progress to construction across 2026 and 2027 as part of a two-year rolling programme.

Project delivery is managed as part of an overall capital programme in line with the Government's infrastructure guidelines. Of course, we always have to take budgetary parameters into account. We do not have an infinite amount of money, so we have to make sure that the projects we have in the system are moving and we are able to progress and deliver them within the budget we have. It is fair to say that delays can happen for certain reasons and different factors, often beyond the Department’s control, such as site acquisition and planning permissions. Often, we have issues, as we have seen, with tenders or contractors. Sometimes, these are issues the Department cannot mitigate, but it obviously adds to some of the delays we see in some of the projects.

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