Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael)
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102. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the status of a school building project (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2275/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The project to which the Deputy refers has reached an advanced stage of architectural planning, Stage 2b, which involves securing the statutory approvals and the preparation of tender documents.

The design team was appointed in March 2011 and the brief was to provide an extension and refurbishment work on a phased basis with a partial decant of classrooms on the existing site. The project was included in the five year construction programme 2012-16 and was scheduled therein to commence construction in 2014.

Planning permission was granted in January 2014.  however, since then the Board of Management and its design team have presented a number of proposals to the Department to change the brief for the project to one which involves a single decant and a single phased delivery during construction. This has led to significant delays in the progression of the project. The most recent decant option, which included the provision of significant levels of new temporary accommodation on site involved an additional cost for the project in the region of €2 million – an increase in the overall cost of the project of around 40%.

The additional €2 million cost for the project arising from the Board of Management's single phase decant and construction proposal raised serious questions as to the viability of the project.

A meeting was convened by my Department, to which the Board of Management and their Design Team were invited in order to resolve any outstanding issues in this regard to enable Stage 2b to be finalised. 

That meeting was held on the 11th November and agreement was reached in relation to a scaling back of the temporary accommodation costs which should now allow the project to progress to the completion of the design stages.

When the revised Stage 2(b) submission has been submitted and approved, my Department will revert to the Board of Management at that time with regard to the further progression of the project to tender and construction. As with any project the progression to tender and construction will be contingent on the availability of funding at time.