Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To clarify, in terms of St. Teresa's Special School, once a design team has been appointed the project can commence stage 1 of architectural planning which is the preliminary design stage. As I said I am doing all I can to make sure that is expedited because they are children with additional needs. I know the school, the incredible team and staff there and indeed the children. It was wonderful to hear about their St. Patrick's Day festival. I hope that will be expedited as soon as possible.

In regard to Scoil an Chroí Naofa, Galway County Council has had issues with the planning permission but both sides need to resolve the conditions there. The most important aspect of this is communication and that there is ongoing engagement and collaboration to move it forward so that they can get planning permission as soon as possible. There were a number of delays due to the Department having a new team of engineers. For example, there were requests from the local authorities and there were access and planning issues. I think the majority of those have been resolved so now it is a matter of the Department communicating with the school authorities and the design team, and committing to assist the school in every way it possibly can. We are trying to oversee that as best we can.