Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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91. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will urgently meet with a school (details supplied) which was removed from the list of agreed major projects for construction in 2016; if he is aware of the major concerns; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21912/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The brief for the school building project to which the Deputy refers is to provide an extension of seven classrooms and refurbishment of the existing accommodation to cater for a 16 classroom school. The staffing at the school is currently a Principal with 11 mainstream teachers and two special education teachers. The enrolments for 2015/16 school year were 295 pupils which reflects an incremental growth of 2% over the last five years.

The design team for this project was appointed in February 2012 when the project commenced architectural planning. However, the project was not included in the 5 year construction programme announced in 2012. The project was subsequently included in the 6 year construction programme announced in November 2015.

The building project for the school in question is now at an advanced stage of architectural planning. All statutory approvals have been obtained, tender documents have been prepared and the Stage 2b submission has been approved by my Department.

However, on 1st January 2016 there were 66 major projects under construction. Since the start of this year 14 more major projects have been progressed to construction and there are currently 36 projects authorised to progress through the tender process with a view to starting on site in the coming months. That represents a total of 116 major projects either under construction or progressing to commence construction in 2016. These projects were authorised to proceed under previous Minister O'Sullivan, and this means that the existing contractual commitments for 2016 now fully account for the funding which was allocated for 2016 by the previous Minister. The project for the school in question was not at a sufficiently advanced stage to be considered for inclusion with those projects when they were authorised to proceed to tender earlier this year.

This has meant that the progression of the major extension and refurbishment project for the school in question to tender stage is not possible at this time. Department officials wrote to the Board of Management on 28th April notifying them of this.

A meeting with senior officials in my Department's school building unit can be arranged and my Department will contact the school authorities directly in this regard.