Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent)

Tá an-áthas orm a bheith sa Teach seo ar maidin le haghaidh an ní seo a thógáil ar son an Aire. I think this is the first opportunity I have had to speak to the Senator here in the Seanad and I am delighted to take this Commencement matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education and Youth, Deputy McEntee, who is unfortunately unavailable. I want to thank the Senator for raising this matter, as it gives me the opportunity to outline to the House a report on the progress of an application for extension to Scoil Gharbháin, Cootehill, Abbeyside, Dungarvan, County Waterford.

Scoil Gharbháin is a co-educational primary school in Dungarvan, County Waterford, with teaching being carried through the medium of Irish. There are currently 320 pupils enrolled in the school. The Department of Education and Youth is in receipt of applications under the additional school accommodation scheme from Scoil Gharbháin and approval was given in 2019 to rent two mainstream modular classrooms. In 2023, the school received approval to rent a room locally to provide one mainstream classroom. An application to purchase additional lands was submitted by the school in 2021 and the acquisition of a 2.765-acre site was completed at the end of May 2025. In 2024, Scoil Gharbháin submitted a revised ASA application to meet the school’s accommodation needs and officials from the Department of Education and Youth have been engaging with the school on an ongoing basis with a view to making the most appropriate provision possible for the school and for its current and future students.

Since 2020, the Department has invested over €6 billion in schools throughout the country under the national development plan, involving the completion of over 1,300 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 the 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 for the period 2026 to 2030 under the national development plan. As part of this NDP allocation, the Department will place a strong emphasis on provision for children with special educational needs, with a particular focus on meeting annual school place needs. In relation to project roll-out for large-scale projects and additional school accommodation scheme projects, 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 2026-30 period to meet the most urgent and prioritised needs.

The Department of Education and Youth is now preparing an NDP implementation plan. which is due for publication later in the autumn. This plan will optimise outputs from the NDP allocations, with a strong focus on maximising existing school capacity, progressing priority projects where local capacity across schools in the area is insufficient, and ensuring delivery that is affordable, offers value for money and meets functional needs.