Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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171. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills for an update on a new school project (details supplied); the timeframe for when this project will move to stage 2B; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5021/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy is aware, the school referred to was approved for a project under my Department's Additional School Accommodation (ASA) scheme. The project will provide 8 General Classrooms, 4 SET rooms, 1 Music room, 1 Textiles room, 1 Art Room, 1 Project store, 1 Multimedia room, 2 Science laboratory /1 Preparation area, 1 Library, and 1 General Purpose/Dining Room. The project is devolved for delivery to the school authority. The school has appointed a design team and submitted the stage 2a report to my Department. Professional and Technical officials are currently reviewing this report with a view to providing practical advice and guidance to the school authority's design team. Once the review is completed, this advice will be shared directly with the School Authority.

There is an overall pipeline of some 1300 projects across the school system. The current status of all projects is listed on a county by county basis at www.gov.ie. and this is updated on a regular basis to reflect project progress through the various stages of capital appraisal, site acquisition, design, tender and construction.

My Department has a strong track record of delivery of school building projects and this was achieved again in 2023 notwithstanding the wider construction sector environment of high inflation, labour shortages and supply chain issues.

Under Project Ireland 2040, we are investing over €5 billion during the period 2021 to 2025, to add capacity and develop and upgrade school facilities across the country for the almost one million students and over 100,000 staff that learn and work in our schools every day.

My Department is very appreciative of the strong support provided by Government for our education budget. As part of the supplementary budget, €405m additional capital funding was provided in 2023. This helped to alleviate capital funding pressures that arose in 2023 which was reflective of the strong delivery by my Department of school building projects – particularly to support mainstream provision accommodating Ukrainian students and special education needs provision. My Department’s overall capital out-turn for 2023 was €1.264 billion.

We continue to have a strong pipeline of projects for delivery under the school building programme involving circa. 300 projects currently at construction, which include 34 new school buildings. We also have a large modular accommodation programme delivering urgently needed school places. The Department has always operated a tightly prioritised approach to the school building programme, focused over recent years on the delivery of additional capacity where required, and this will continue to be the case.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The school campus building project on the site referred to by the Deputy is included in my Department’s Construction Programme and will deliver two new 1,000 pupil post-primary schools and a new 8 classroom primary school and accommodation, including 14 classrooms, for children with special educational needs.

The project will be delivered under my Department's ADAPT Programme which uses a professional external Project Manager to co-ordinate and drive the Design Team to achieve the best possible timeframe for the project through the stages of Architectural Planning, to Tender and Construction.

The Programme Manager was appointed in Q3 2023 and is in the process of preparing documentation for the tender process for the appointment of multi-disciplinary design team consultants.

The Department will keep the schools and their patron bodies informed of the progression of this campus project.