Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)
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Question 96: To ask the Minister for Education and Science when the Grangegorman Development Authority will begin its work; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19719/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Dáil passed all Stages of the Grangegorman Development Agency Bill on 1 June 2005. The Second Stage reading of the Bill is scheduled to commence in the Seanad on 14 June 2005.

The purpose of this Bill is to establish an agency whose function, in the first instance, is to prepare a strategic planning scheme for the Grangegorman site. The plan must provide for the needs of the Dublin Institute of Technology, the Health Service Executive and the Ministers for Education and Science and Health and Children. The Bill provides for wide-ranging consultation with all the parties that may have an involvement in the site. This ranges from those who are directly concerned — local residents, the DIT, the HSE and the Dublin City Council — to those parties whose future involvement may have a bearing on the site reaching its full potential such as the IDA and Dublin Bus. The Department of Transport will also have a major input because of the public transport requirements of the developed site.

It is my intention, once the necessary legislative framework is in place, to establish the agency as soon as possible thereafter so that it can then commence carrying out the functions given to it in the legislation.