Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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39. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the status of the promised project for the building of a school (details supplied) in County Wexford which was in an advanced stage of architectural planning and scheduled to start construction in 2016; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45105/17]

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I am sure the Minister is aware of St. Patrick's school, Enniscorthy, because its case has been highlighted in the media recently. It has been promised a new building for some time and had hoped to be in it last September. That has not happened. It is no further down the road. The school caters for many children with additional needs and I would like an update on it.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The major project for St. Patrick's special school, Enniscorthy, which will provide replacement facilities for the school, is included in the Department of Education and Skills's construction programme. The project will provide for 20 classrooms and will include such facilities as special teacher rooms, multi-sensory, physiotherapy and occupational therapy rooms and a nurse's area and the provision of ball courts, external dining area and a garden play area.

As a replacement project, this school project was not initially included in the Department's five-year construction plan, due to the focus in that plan on providing additional accommodation in areas of significant demographic growth. In 2015, the project for the school was brought into the programme and has been advanced within the architectural planning process since.

While it would have been expected that this project would have progressed more quickly, it was delayed due to departmental revisions to its technical guidance documents and owing to staff changes internally. In July 2017 the stage 2b, detailed design, was approved and a process to carry out a short-listing of suitably qualified building contractors and subcontractors was commenced. The relevant short-listing contract notices were posted to the Official Journal of the European Union, OJEU, and the Government's eTenders website on 27 September and 8 October, respectively. This process encountered a short delay due to the revisions to the technical guidance documents, arising from changes to the public works contract which came into effect this year.

My Department is fully committed to the delivery of this project and will appoint an external consultant architect to oversee the project when it progresses to construction. It is anticipated that following the tender process to appoint a building contractor, this project will go on site and commence construction in the first half of 2018.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the Minister's reply. I visited the school when it was giving July provision for students with autism. It is doing tremendous work. I question the health and safety of the building and classroom conditions. The classes are in prefabricated buildings. There is a lot of damp in the building. These children have very particular needs. Some need to be isolated for part of the day because of the risk of infection. It is unacceptable that children with those needs are asked to be in that kind of environment day in and day out and that staff have to deal with that. There is no outdoor space. There is chaos when buses come to collect students. I welcome the plan to have this done by next year but the school should be in that building now. It should have started there last September. I hope the Minister will keep this high on the agenda and that there will not be any more delays and that the school can look forward to having this building next year because it is long overdue.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I accept that the planning was not as well done as it ought to have been in this case. There were delays. At the time the Department wanted to make sure that it was designed in-house to ensure that we had the internal expertise for the construction of special school projects of this nature. In the event that decision probably delayed the project somewhat, which was unfortunate. I can understand why it was done but there are no foreseeable delays now and I am confident that it will progress.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome that and the fact that the Minister accepts there were unacceptable delays. Hopefully, he will keep this high on the agenda. They seem to have been on lists for a very long time but always seem to be forgotten. Hopefully, this time around, they will not be forgotten and will get that much-needed new building.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Department has recognised that. An external consultant architect has been appointed to make sure that this will be overseen very effectively by the Department.