Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy McHugh, I thank the Senator for raising this matter which I know from previous conversations with him is very close to his heart. It provides me with the opportunity to outline to the Seanad the current position in regard to the major building project for the Sacred Heart Secondary School in Clonakilty.

A building project for the school is included in the Department of Education and Skills six-year construction programme. That is a significant first hurdle to get over. A project brief has been finalised and will provide an extension with refurbishment to cater for 600 pupils in the long-term projected enrolment. As the Senator stated, the project will be delivered via the ADAPT programme, which is an innovative delivery programme first introduced by the Department in 2016. It uses a professional external project manager to co-ordinate and drive the respective design teams on each project. In this regard, a tender competition is in train to establish a project manager framework, which is essentially a list of potential project managers with the skills and capacity to deliver on the project. That framework is expected to be in place shortly. Tenders have been returned by potential project managers and are being evaluated. Once established, the framework will be used to appoint a project manager for the ADAPT programme following a further tender exercise specific to ADAPT. The Department of Education and Skills wrote to the school on 19 March 19 to provide an update on the status of this project.