Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for submitting this Commencement matter and giving me the opportunity to update the House on the progress of the new building for Summercove National School in the beautiful town of Kinsale. One does not need to rely on Central Statistics Office, CSO, figures; one can see the sheer activity around Kinsale. We know the population has gone up but the future population will grow exponentially. Anyone who has spent time travelling to that part of the country will have seen the rate of development in new housing developments and renovations. When the Senator brought me there just before Easter weekend in April with Councillor Marie O'Sullivan, we discussed many issues relevant to business. A key issue mentioned by many business owners was that when bringing jobs and attracting business to the town, we have to make sure there are schools for the children of the people we want to attract to this amazing town. Central to that is the development of a new school for Summercove National School.

As the Senator will be aware, the brief for this project is the development of a single-storey, eight-classroom primary school with two classrooms for pupils with special educational needs, SEN. The school recently requested a review of its long-term accommodation requirements. The Department has completed this review and is satisfied that the accommodation to be provided for eight mainstream classrooms and two SEN classrooms will cater for the long-term needs of the school and the wider Kinsale area. The major building project for the national school will be delivered under the Department's accelerated delivery of architectural planning and tendering, ADAPT, programme. The programme uses a professional external project manager to co-ordinate and drive the design team to achieve the best-possible timeframe for the project through the stages of architectural planning to tender and construction. The tender process to appoint a project manager was completed in the first quarter of this year. The tender process to appoint the design team to progress the project for Summercove National School was completed in the second quarter of 2023. The design team is currently at an early stage of architectural planning - stage one, preliminary design - in which the design team carries out an assessment of the site and location and prepares initial sketch schemes. On receipt and review of the stage one report, the end of stage one stakeholders' meeting will be arranged by the project manager, to include representatives from the school, the design team and departmental officials. The Senator asked for an update on progress; progress has been made but I am sure the Senator shares my desire to see that progress continued and sped up, where possible.