Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Minister of State. I raise the issue of an application for additional school accommodation by St. Mel's College, Longford, a school I attended a number of years ago. The college opened in September 1865, with 48 boarders and 28 day boys. For most of the next decade, the college was a major seminary, where students pursued philosophy and theology through to ordination. More than 650 former students of the college were ordained to the priesthood between 1865 and 2000. In 1965, the centenary of the college's foundation was marked with the building of a new wing to provide accommodation for 100 boarders, as well as a new refectory. Prefabricated buildings were also built to cope with the increase in numbers.

In 1996, there were 740 students and 42 teachers, while in 2002, the last boarding students departed, ending a tradition that began in 1865. In 2010, St. Mel's College welcomed the parishioners of Longford following the fire on Christmas Day 2009 in St. Mel's Cathedral, and for five years the school hosted mass for the parishioners in Longford. St. Mel's also has a great history of sporting achievement, and by the year 1994 had won a total of 28 Leinster GAA titles. The school is on a fantastic site and is lucky to have football fields, which are used by the school and are open to other groups, such as underage county hurling, and recently signed an agreement with Longford Athletics Club to provide an indoors athletics facility for the county.

The school has applied to the Department for additional school accommodation. Grant aid is sought to remove nine prefabricated classrooms and to replace them with nine classrooms in the existing building, the 1865 wing, which has a number of classrooms. If funding is received, these classrooms will include a large technical graphics room, a guidance suite, a computer room and a music room. St. Mel's wants to move these classes into the 1865 building, as this would bring the school back to its original home and save having to build a new building to replace the prefabricated buildings, which are now in a state of decline. A recent architects' report on the prefabricated buildings commented that the college continues to maintain the demountable buildings and keep them decorated but that they are in poor condition. It went on to say there were poor insulation values, that the buildings were not up to current fire safety standards, and that the rooms are appropriate for temporary, not permanent, accommodation use.

The college was built as an educational environment for boys after the Famine and the vision at the time was to provide education for boys in the surrounding areas. This vision has not changed and the school would like to bring the 1865 building back to use by using it to house a total of 15 classrooms, where the boys will once again walk the corridors and receive their second level education. This building provides excellent additional space on the first and second floors to provide these additional classrooms, which the school feels will satisfy the growing numbers in the school over the coming years and into the future. At present, there are a total of 560 pupils, with a projected enrolment in 2021 of 580. A large number of pupils from Longford town have to travel in excess of ten miles outside the town area to receive secondary education due to the low number of places available in the town. Longford County Council is replacing with railings a 7 ft high wall on St. Mel's Road to open up the views of this historic building. I hope the Department can follow suit by providing funding to bring this old building back to life and to have students walk its corridors again.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator for bringing this matter to my attention. It provides me with the opportunity to clarify the current position for St. Mel's College, Longford, in respect of the additional classroom space. I am sure the school is delighted to have the Senator as an alumnus representing them in the House.

St. Mel's College is a Catholic all-boys primary school under the patronage of the Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise. In September 2019, the school had an enrolment of 548 pupils, and enrolments have grown in the college by more than 18% in the past five years. In June 2020, the Department received an application from the school authority of St. Mel's College for capital funding under the additional school accommodation scheme. The college has applied, as the Senator noted, for the replacement of nine prefabricated mainstream class units on site and for the refurbishment of a building dating from 1865 to provide specialist classroom space for a technical graphics room, a guidance suite, a computer room, a music room and a science laboratory.

Officials from the Department have been liaising with the school authority, seeking clarification on a number of issues that have now been agreed on. The planning and building unit within the Department deals with those clarifications. Before the assessment process can be finalised, members of the Department's technical team will have to consider whether the 1865 building is a viable option for reconfiguration. I can confirm that this assessment will be carried out as quickly as possible and the school authority will be kept informed of all developments. I note what the Senator said about the architects' report and the fact it found there were poor conditions and insulation and fire safety concerns, and that the prefabricated buildings are designed for temporary, as distinct from permanent, accommodation. I am sure that is something the Department will take into account.

Under Project Ireland 2040, the schools sector will receive a total of €8.8 billion over the period 2018 to 2027 and capital planning and budgeting is undertaken multi-annually. For the Senator's information, the key drivers of capital investment in the school sector are demographic change, alignment with housing provision and national planning at school planning area level, construction costs, catch-up to address a legacy of underinvestment, and climate action objectives, including deep energy retrofit.In addition, there are also three additional cost drivers which occurred after the original NDP capital allocation for pre-2018, namely, the school remediation programme, Covid-19 and the programme for Government.

Suffice to say, if the assessment is favourable, the school would be able to proceed to planning. We hope that will happen. The specific allocations in each area under the NDP capital allocation are closely monitored and can be adjusted from year to year to take account of project progress and other the factors.

The Department proactively manages all of its capital allocation across subheads and budget lines to advance its school building and other capital investment priorities. It is within these parameters that a building project for St. Mel's College in Longford will be progressed. The Department always has a large pipeline of projects for delivery under the school building programme. I hope the application for St. Mel's College will be successful and will be able to proceed to the planning stage.

Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I am delighted that the project will be moved to an assessment stage, which I believe will be successful. The school engaged a professional architect to assess the possibilities for the project. The report which stated that it was viable to bring the building back into use was submitted to the Department.

We discussed costs for education. This project would provide value for money and would bring a large building within the confines of the town within walking distance of students back into use rather than incurring the substantial costs of providing a new building. The building is available. I am confident that the assessment will be positive and I am delighted that the project is moving forward. I look forward to it being successful.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator. I wish to reiterate that the concerns the architect raised in his report will be taken into consideration by the building and planning unit. The distance that pupils have to travel to go to school will also be taken into account. What will primarily be taken into account is the fact that it is a building dating from 1865 and whether it is a viable option for reconfiguration in the first instance. I have been told by the Department that the assessment will proceed as soon as possible. It is to be hoped that we will be in a favourable position to come back to the Senator.

I thank St. Mel's College for co-operating with the Department in terms of outlining any issues that need to be agreed. They have been agreed, which is good. That has been satisfactory in terms of concluding that aspect of the process. Once the assessment has been completed we will then be in a position to see whether the project can proceed to planning, and I hope that it will.