Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 752: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if a proposal by a school (details supplied) in County Limerick to develop a new school in conjunction with his Department meets with criteria within his Department; if this proposal will be considered by his Department; his views on whether it would enable his Department to permit the project to commence immediately and, therefore, improve education facilities for the children of Kilfinane, which are urgently required; and if he has considered the matter. [27410/08]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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My Department will be providing a new greenfield site building for the school to which the Deputy refers in due course.

Tenders have been received for the project and it is now awaiting approval to proceed to construction.

I am not in a position to give the go ahead for any more projects to proceed to construction at this time. I indicated this clearly to the school in question when I visited it recently.

I am currently reviewing, with my officials, the Department's spending plans for this year and I will not be making any decision on any further capital expenditure until that process is completed.

What I can say is that the new building for the school in question will be provided when the requisite funding is available and on a timeline consistent with the priority attaching to the project under the published prioritisation criteria for large scale building projects.

I can confirm that the school recently submitted a proposal to my Department in relation to how its project might proceed this year without incurring Departmental expenditure.

This proposal will be examined by the School Planning and Building Unit in my Department and a response will issue directly to the school authority. The examination will be strictly governed by the capital allocation available in 2009 and the priority attaching to the project in this regard. Any other approach would be unfair to schools in a similar situation which cannot provide start up funding for their projects.