Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Many schools have a general purpose room/sports hall and practically all schools have outdoor play areas. In addition, many schools, use adjacent local facilities, including community halls, public parks, playing fields and swimming pools.

The provision of general purpose rooms, PE halls and outdoor hard play areas such as basketball courts, form part of the accommodation brief for all new school buildings or where a major building or refurbishment project is being delivered for an existing school.

The main focus of resources over the last decade and for the coming period is on provision of additional capacity to cater for increasing demographics particularly at post-primary level and for special needs provision.

Under the National Development Plan (NDP), increased funding has been provided for the school sector capital investment programme. This funding allows for a continued focus on the provision of new permanent school places to keep pace with demographic demand and also provides for an additional focus on the refurbishment of existing school buildings, to include the building and modernisation of PE facilities in post-primary schools.

Under Project Ireland 2040, we will invest €8.8 billion in primary and post primary school buildings. The government is committed to a PE Hall build and modernisation programme, starting in the second half of the NDP period which will see an increasing focus on the upgrade and refurbishment of the existing school stock to ensure that students in all post-primary schools have access to appropriate facilities to support PE provision.