James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Question 473: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the position regarding the provision of a new school building for a school (details supplied) in County Westmeath. [32239/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Department is aware of the current and planned housing developments for the area to which the Deputy refers and that additional accommodation will be required at the school in question to cater for a consequential increase in enrolments. As the Deputy will know, all applications for large scale capital funding are assessed against published prioritisation criteria and assigned a Band rating. Progress on individual projects is then considered in the context of the multi-Annual School Building and Modernisation Programme consistent with the assigned Band rating. This is the case for the project in question.

The new National Development Plan (NDP) includes funding of €4.5 billion for investment in school building infrastructure. This will be the largest investment programme in schools in the history of the State and it will enable the Department to ensure that school places are available where needed as well as continuing to upgrade existing school facilities. This investment will allow the Department to continue the acceleration of the school building programme which commenced during the lifetime of the last NDP when well over €2.6 billion was invested on school development, delivering over 7,800 projects.