Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the guests from Kildare. I hope they enjoy their time in Leinster House.

The Senator is right. I think everyone is now aware of St. Francis special school in this House and the Dáil, right across Leinster House and Government buildings, because she raises it so regularly. Fair play to her for representing her constituents in that way. I will try to give the most accurate update possible and I hope it will be of some comfort to the Senator and the school staff and principal.

The school referred to by the Senator was approved to enter the Department's pipeline for school building projects under the additional school accommodation scheme to provide a four-classroom special educational needs, SEN, base. This project is devolved to the school authority for delivery. The project is currently at stage 2b - which is developed design - of the architectural design process. This stage includes obtaining all statutory approvals, preparing a set of fully detailed tender documents and preparing an accurate pre-tender cost plan. The stage 2b report was submitted to the Department in March 2026 - this month - and is currently under review from technical and cost perspectives. All projects, including this one, are subject to the full due-diligence requirements set out in the Department’s infrastructure guidelines. Managing timing, scope and cost is crucial to staying within budgetary limits for the overall program.

More recently, two SEN classrooms were provided at this school under the Department's devolved SEN repurposing and modular accommodation programme. The approved modular accommodation was completed in November 2025. As the Senator will be aware, the Department recently published the €7.55 billion national development plan, NDP, sectoral investment plan for the education and youth sectors for the period 2026 to 2030. This NDP sectoral plan involves a very strong emphasis on maximising existing capacity and prioritising school building projects to meet the most urgent needs. In this regard, there will be a strong special education dimension to project roll-out, which should augur well for St. Francis School. Of the total €7.55 billion investment it is envisaged that approximately €5 billion will be used for project roll-out to support the delivery and modernisation of school buildings across the large scale, additional accommodation, modular and annual September accommodation needs programmes. The Department will continue to build on the progress made over recent years with the continued roll-out of these projects on a prioritised basis to meet the most urgent needs, with the provision of additional capacity and modernisation of existing facilities.

In this regard, the Department has published a list of the 105 school building projects in the first tranche that will proceed to construction or tender in 2026 and 2027. The 105 prioritised projects will progress to tender and-or construction on a rolling basis over the course of 2026 and 2027 within the context of NDP funding parameters. The timing of project progression will reflect the need to carefully manage the roll-out of these projects to construction on a controlled basis to ensure that projects are delivered efficiently, align with the requirements of the infrastructure guidelines and capital works management framework and remain within the parameters of NDP funding.

It is at stage 2b, developed design, at the moment. The Senator asked specific questions about planning. Sometimes planning issues are outside our control, but my understanding is that every effort is being made to ensure all relevant statutory requirements are complied with to ensure the build can commence as soon as possible and I will try to get more information in that regard for the Senator.