Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)

I thank the Senator for raising this matter. I know it is very dear to her heart. It was her own secondary school that she attended. It is very commendable that as a past pupil, she is here in the House and enabled to advocate for and represent her community and her former school. I will take this opportunity to welcome students from St. Joseph's College to the Seanad. I hope they find this debate an interesting one. Their school was in this situation a number of years ago. Thankfully, the Tánaiste opened a brand-new school recently. It takes a very long time, as the staff and students of St. Joseph's College will attest to, but it happens eventually.

This week's Cabinet meeting was moved from yesterday to today to facilitate the presidential inauguration and, for that reason, the Minister for education has asked me to take this matter on her behalf this morning. She has asked me to update the Senator and the House on the current position regarding the planned school building at Coachford Community College in Coachford, County Cork. As the Senator has said, it has been approved as a major devolved project to deliver a new school building for a long-term projected enrolment of 1,000 pupils. I note she said there are 850 pupils in the school already and that figure is growing. When it is finished, this school will be able to accommodate that growth trajectory. It will also have a four-classroom special education needs base.

The project has been devolved for delivery to Cork ETB, which has appointed a design team to design the accommodation being provided through the various stages of architectural planning. Projects progress from stage to stage in accordance with the project brief and the Department's design guidelines. The project for Coachford Community College is currently at stage 2b. That is the post-planning process. As the Senator said, funding was approved in 2020 and planning was approved in 2023. At this point, the architectural process will allow for the detailed design and planning to obtain the necessary statutory permissions for the preparation of the tender documents. The next stage will be the tender.

At this juncture in the project, it is unfortunately not feasible to give an indicative time for delivery because it has not gone to tender yet. The Department will continue to engage directly with Cork ETB to provide assistance in regard to the project as required.Since 2020, the Department has invested over €6 billion in schools throughout the country under the national development plan, which initiated in my own Department. It involves the completion of over 1,300 school building projects.

In addition, repurposing and optimisation of existing accommodation capacity across the school estate has been a key enabler of timely and local provision of special class capacity in a way that supports best practice in inclusion and integration. About 80% of new special classes in 2025 and 2026 are being accommodated in repurposed classroom accommodation. In July, the Government announced a capital allocation of €7.5 billion for the Department of Education and Youth for the period from 2026 to 2030 under the new NDP. As part of that allocation, the Department will place a very strong emphasis on the provision of education for children with special educational needs, with a particular focus on meeting annual school place needs.

In relation to the roll-out of large-scale projects, which the school referenced by the Senator is, 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 then provide necessary additional accommodation through targeted and prioritised project roll-out over the course of next year right up to 2030. It will be prioritised on the basis of urgent need. This school has been in the system a long time. It has its funding and planning. There is a very clear case, which the Senator again put forward and is on the record of the House today. I will absolutely feed that back to the Minister and ask that it be prioritised.