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

-----but that signifies it is entering into a planning phase at that stage and there is a process that follows that. We can communicate better; the Senator made a fair point in that respect. Efforts will be put in place to try to manage that better and in that way people would have a clearer view of the path ahead.

This is an important project for the school. On the Senator's point about whether we are neglecting matters, a fair balance has been struck. Of the roughly 120,000 new places, a little more than half of them have been in new schools and the rest have been in existing schools, either by way of expansions or refurbishments. There is not an emphasis just solely on the new growth areas to the exclusion of others. There is a balance in the approach taken by the Department to ensure all needs are accommodated. Apart from these major programmes, there are other programmes that try to support existing schools.

A positive aspect is that we can look forward in the future to growing provision to meet the needs in areas such as digital science, physical education and so on, which I believe most Senators would agree are areas for which we need to be planning.