Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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228. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason for the delays for a new build for a school (details supplied) in County Kildare; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8593/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The School Building project referred to by the Deputy is on my Department's 6 year construction programme. As the Deputy will appreciate, the success of the schools building programme is predicated on the need to ensure that at any given time, there are sufficient number of school projects available to proceed to construction. If this is not the case, there is the risk that capital monies made available for the purpose of accommodating children at primary and post-primary level cannot be spent and that the State cannot provide for school buildings at maximum capacity. Given that any number of issues can arise at any stage up to construction stage in the process of building schools, it is essential that other projects can be progressed if individual projects are delayed for whatever reason. This can also however have the contrary result that there may be more school projects available to proceed to construction than the available budgetary position will allow.

In line with this process, the project for the school to which the Deputy refers was authorised to proceed to tender in October 2016 and is currently completing the tender stage and is expected to commence construction shortly.