Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will give a bit of context to the Senator's question. Since 2011, despite very difficult economic conditions, my Department has built 200 new schools and provided 120,000 new school places. We are providing school places at a rate of 20,000 per year because we are in the fortunate position of having a demographic bulge going through our schools. We are working very hard to meet needs but these needs are growing continuously and we need to plan ahead. The 2016-2021 plan to which the Senator referred, and in which her school is included, anticipates the needs of the future with a rolling programme which develops according to those needs. The Senator referred - rather critically - to having a national framework which looked forward ten years but she should support this process as it allows us to plan for the things that will be needed in the future, like laboratories and PE provision which we simply have not been able to provide on a stand-alone basis in recent years.

I am please to tell the Senator that we have committed to the school in Bagenalstown which she mentioned, and we have committed to include a PE hall in the new build. We will not follow through on the very strict approach there has been to PE halls. Presentation De la Salle is a co-educational school which has had a significant growth in enrolments, from 470 to 691 pupils. We have provided additional accommodation for the school on a temporary basis across a range of needs such as home economics, science and woodwork, but the long-term plan is to construct a new school. A school site visit by my Department's architectural staff has taken place as part of the preparatory work which is required to initiate the architectural planning process for the project. The next step includes devising the schedules of accommodation for the purposes of the schools project brief, and this process is in train. When the schedules have been finalised, my Department will be in further contact with the school authorities and, as I said, pending construction of additional accommodation my Department has provided temporary accommodation to cater for its interim needs.

The fact that a long-term planning process is in place shows that we anticipate the needs of schools, such as the one in Bagenalstown referred to by the Senator, and that we are in a position to plan. Every school would love its needs to be met yesterday but we are managing a tight capital budget at a time of a rapidly growing population and growing pupil numbers. We have to manage it to the best of our ability. I hope the information is of some help to the Senator.