Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Senator for raising the issue in respect of Carrabane National School, County Galway. I know he raised it on the Order of Business on Tuesday. I thank him for his warm welcome to Galway recently and for the engagement we had with schools across east Galway. It was a lovely day and we certainly got a flavour of the issues across the county,

Since 2020, the Department of Education and Youth has invested over €224 million, supporting the completion of 86 school building projects, with a further 31 currently in construction in Galway. Across the country, the Department of Education and Youth has invested over €6 billion in schools throughout the country under the national development plan, involving the completion of over 1,400 school building projects. Government support for this investment, including by way of supplementary capital funding, has delivered real benefits for school communities. Supplementary capital funding of €210 million approved by Government has brought the total capital allocation for 2025 for the Department of Education and Youth to €1.6 billion.

In July, the Government announced a capital allocation of €7.55 billion for the Department of Education and Youth for the period 2026 to 2030 under the national development plan. As part of this NDP allocation a strong emphasis will be placed on provision for children with special educational needs, with a particular focus on meeting annual school place needs.

In respect of the project roll-out for large-scale projects and additional school accommodation schemes, the approach will be to continue to maximise the capacity of the existing school estate as much as possible in the first instance and provide necessary additional capacity through targeted and prioritised project roll-out over the course of the 2026 to 2030 period to meet the most urgent and prioritised needs.

Carrabane National School is a co-educational primary school constructed in the 1940s. The school is under the patronage of the Bishop of Clonfert, with a current enrolment of some 208 pupils. The project for Carrabane National School is part of the Department's traditional construction programme and the project brief provides for the construction of a replacement eight-classroom primary school and accommodation, including two classrooms for children with special educational needs. Planning permission for the project expired in 2024 and an extension of planning permission was required. This extension was granted by the local authority in late August 2025. The project is currently at architectural planning stage 3 - tender action and award.

A tender report was received by the Department of Education and Youth and is currently under review by departmental officials. Due diligence is an integral part of the Department of Education and Youth's process and when this review is complete and subject to no further issues arising, the Department will be in further contact with the school authority and the design team. Until such time as a contractor has been appointed, a timeline for completion cannot be provided. However, I assure the Senator that we will work on it. The application is under review at the moment and I will ask Department officials to look at it as soon as possible.