Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator McGahon for raising the matter as it provides me with the opportunity to clarify the current position in relation to De La Salle College, Dundalk, County Louth, on behalf of Minister for Education, Deputy Foley. De La Salle College is an all-boys school under the patronage of the Le Chéile Schools Trust. The enrolment at the school in September 2022 was 704 pupils.

With regard to meeting the current and future accommodation needs of De La Salle College, the school was approved funding under the Department of Education's additional school accommodation scheme in 2018. This project will deliver two mainstream classrooms, a design and communications graphics room and two classrooms for students with special education needs. This project has been devolved to the school authority for delivery and is currently at stage 2A.

In September 2022 the Department also approved interim accommodation to facilitate the opening of a class for students with special educational needs from September 2023. A project to deliver this modular accommodation is under way in cognisance of the importance of urgently facilitating the new special class at the school. The purpose of the additional school accommodation scheme is to ensure essential teaching spaces and accommodation for students with special educational needs are available to cater for pupils enrolled each year where the need cannot be met by the school's existing accommodation. At post-primary level, this situation generally arises to cater for significantly increasing enrolments due to demographic pressures or to provide accommodation for special classes and where all available alternative accommodation within the school is already being used for teaching purposes.

The school has contacted the Department with respect to the provision of new benches and presses in the science laboratories. Such science laboratory refurbishment works would typically fall to be addressed under the summer works scheme. I can confirm there is no recent or current application on hand under the summer works scheme for the refurbishment of science labs at De La Salle College. In 2022, the school was approved funding under the summer works scheme to carry out a full rewiring of the school. This project is yet to commence. It is open to the school to apply for funding under future summer works schemes.

Under Project Ireland 2040, the education sector will receive a total of approximately €4.4 billion capital investment over the period 2021 to 2025. There will be a rolling five-year funding envelope which will be updated annually for the period 2026 to 2030 within the Government's overall national development plan, NDP, funding envelope of €136 billion in Exchequer capital that will facilitate building a modern and sustainable school infrastructure. This significant investment allows us to move forward with certainty on our ambitious plans and deliver high-quality building projects, with a real focus on sustainability, for school communities throughout Ireland. The strengthened focus on the refurbishment of existing school stock will have different strands and will include a deep energy retrofit programme in support of our 2030 and 2050 climate action goals.

I advise the Senator that updates in relation to all school building projects are provided on the Department's website and this is updated regularly.