Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

——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 consistent 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 Government has increased dramatically investment in the school building programme from slightly more than €90 million when it came into office, to €550 million this year. During the lifetime of the national development plan, almost €4.5 billion will be invested in schools. This is an unprecedented level of capital investment, which reflects the commitment of the Government to continue its programme of sustained investment in primary and post-primary schools.

This year, more than €300 million will be invested in large-scale building projects, concentrated mainly in the provision of school accommodation in rapidly developing areas. This level of funding will facilitate construction work on more than 150 large-scale projects, which will deliver more than 15,000 additional permanent places in new schools and the extension and modernisation of facilities in existing schools for more than 45,000 pupils.

It will also enable the purchase of sites to facilitate the smooth delivery of the school building programme, again with the focus being on site requirements in rapidly developing areas. The balance will be used to fund the other elements of the school building programme such as the summer works scheme, the small schools scheme, the permanent accommodation scheme and so on.

In total, more than 1,500 school building projects will be delivered in 2007. The Department of Education and Science is anxious to ensure they are proactive in planning for the needs of rapidly developing areas. Senator O'Rourke will be aware of the recently published area development plan for the M4-N4 corridor.