Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

Gabhaim buíochas don Seanadóir as ucht ocáide a thabhairt dom a chur in iúl don Seanad an méid atá ag dul ar aghaidh ag an Roinn. Aontaím go bhfuil brú ar an Seanadóir ina cheantar féin agus mar gheall as an díospóireacht seo, labhróidh mé leis an Aire Oideachais agus Eolaíochta faoin díoma ar mhuintir Ros Comáin.

On behalf of the Minister for Education and Science, I wish to point out that modernising facilities in our 3,200 primary and 750 post-primary schools is not an easy task given the legacy of decades of under-investment as well as the need to respond to emerging needs in areas of rapid population growth. Nonetheless, since taking office, the Government has shown a sincere determination to improve the condition of our school buildings and to ensure that the appropriate facilities are in place to enable the implementation of a broad and balanced curriculum. The Minister for Education and Science recently outlined details of the schools building and modernisation programme. This year alone, €270 million will be allocated to primary schools and €223 million to post-primary schools for building works. This represents an increase of 14% on the 2004 allocation.

Elphin community college is a single centre coeducational facility with an enrolment of 116 pupils. Enrolment has remained steady in recent years. The school's teaching staff is 11.71 whole-time equivalent posts, indicating a very generous pupil teacher ratio of 10:1. The school currently operates on a split site in the town and I can appreciate the difficulties this causes. County Roscommon VEC submitted an application to provide accommodation for all students on a single campus. Architectural planning for a project to provide an extension was initiated and is at an early stage of architectural design. Last year the VEC was given approval by the Department to purchase a portion of land to allow access to the site for the development of the proposed extension.

All school building projects in the system were reassessed last year in line with the criteria for prioritising large-scale projects, which were revised following consultation with all the education partners, and this project is rated as a band 3. The introduction of multi-annual capital envelopes requires a revised approach to how building projects are scheduled through the design process and on to tender and construction. The Minister announced details of 122 high priority major projects which will prepare tenders and move to construction in the next 12 to 15 months, and followed this with a series of announcements relating to the school building and modernisation programme. These announcements included details of an expansion of the number of schools invited to deliver their building projects on the basis of devolved funding, details of schools with projects approved under the 2005 summer works scheme to which the Department has allocated €60 million, almost twice that spent in 2004, and details of schools authorised to commence architectural planning. Further announcements will be made on projects which will be allowed to progress through the architectural design process and Elphin community college will be considered in this context. In thanking the Senator for raising this matter, I will bring his concerns to the attention of the Minister for Education and Science and I will ask that the Department might be able to initiate stage 2 of the project.