Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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My Department has received an application for additional accommodation from the school authorities of St. Brendan's College, Woodbrook, Bray. The application has been examined in the school planning section of my Department and agreement reached with the school authorities on the school's long-term accommodation needs. The project is awaiting the appointment of a design team.

As I announced when publishing the capital programme for 2004, my Department is holding consultations with the education partners on the prioritisation criteria used for large-scale building projects. The purpose of these consultations is to ensure that the criteria have optimum precision and are fully tuned to meeting the priority accommodation needs of the primary and post-primary sectors. When the consultations have been completed, a review of all projects awaiting the appointment of a design team will be undertaken and a further list of priority projects will be brought forward to commence architectural planning. The proposed project at St. Brendan's College will be included in this review.

To alleviate the accommodation problems at the school in the short-term, my Department approved the provision of six prefabs in September 2001. To date no further application for temporary accommodation has been received from the school authority.