Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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321. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills for an overview of the sections in her Department responsible for overseeing and delivering school buildings; and the criteria used to sanction and progress provision of new buildings and upgrade of existing buildings. [5558/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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My Department’s Planning and Building Unit is responsible for identifying the need for school accommodation; setting out the technical specifications for educational buildings; ensuring that standards are maintained; prioritising the allocation of resources and overseeing the delivery of the capital programme. The unit comprises the specialist sections for the various areas of responsibility ranging from Site Acquisition & Forward Planning Section, Strategic Capacity Planning, Additional Needs Assessments & Modular Delivery, Major Projects, Devolved Projects, Schools Property Management and Schools Remediation, Retrofit & Refurbishment and the Professional and Technical Section. A full outline of the various sections and their work is available on Gov.ie.

In order to plan for school provision and analyse the relevant demographic data, the Department divides the country into 314 school planning areas. The Department uses a Geographic Information System (GIS), which facilitates the analysis of data from a range of sources, including CSO Census data, Child Benefit and school enrolment data, to identify where the pressure for school places across the country will arise and where additional school accommodation is needed at primary and post-primary level. As part of the demographic demand analysis, the Department also factors in planning and construction activity in the residential sector gathered from a wide range of sources. The information is used to inform the roll out of both new school buildings and extensions to existing schools as required. The Department consults widely with stakeholders and works closely with school authorities and patrons as part of this work.

The Department’s school building programme is delivered through a range of procurement strategies which are tailored to the scale and complexity of projects and programmes ranging from large scale new and existing school projects to schemes and grants to upgrade and maintain existing buildings. This strategic procurement approach also allows the Department and individual school authorities flexibility to access a diversity of contractors and consultants and the approach has allowed the department to maintain its strong and consistent delivery. The Department is constantly renewing, updating and broadening the range of procurement frameworks to support the delivery of the school building programme.

Large scale projects are delivered through procurement routes such as Design and Build, ADAPT, and traditional employer led design including major devolved projects with our education partners. The Additional School Accommodation (ASA) scheme is focused on delivering additional capacity on existing school sites. Traditional ASA projects are devolved to schools for delivery. The Department also uses modern methods of construction as appropriate including Modular accommodation in order to expedite delivery. My department has also secured exemptions under the planning regulations in certain contexts to facilitate faster delivery of accommodation to meet near-term requirements. Exemptions relate to smaller projects on existing school sites and certain temporary accommodation on school sites for which planning permission has been obtained for the permanent school.

The Department has integrated delivery teams which include both professional and technical, and administrative/project management staff. These teams support and oversee the delivery of projects based on compliance with departmental technical guidance documents from project brief stage through the various stages of architectural design and planning and ultimately to tender, construction and completion. In line with the Government’s Infrastructure Guidelines, projects are subject to relevant due diligence by my department at each stage in the process, within the context of overall programme and budgetary parameters. It is also important to note that all individual projects form part of a larger programme and the Department must manage the wider programme within the context of available resources, including funding parameters, and this can impact on individual project timeframes.

Since 2020, my department has invested over €5.7 billion in our schools throughout the country, involving the completion of over 1,150 school building projects and with construction currently underway at approximately 300 other projects, which includes new school buildings some of which are being delivered in phases. These 300 projects currently at construction involve a total State investment of over €1.3bn. The department announced in 2024 that close to 90 projects, including 28 new school buildings, would be authorised to proceed from tender stage to construction over the course of 2024 and early 2025. In total, around €800 million will be invested in these projects under the department’s Large Scale Capital Programme and Additional Accommodation Scheme for essential classroom accommodation. Between projects currently under construction and projects moving to construction in this latest phase, investments by the Department of Education are adding over 550,000 square metres of new and modernised capacity to our school estate. This is a record level of investment in school buildings. It will expand the number of school places, significantly increase provision for special education and upgrade and modernise our school infrastructure. The impact of this will be felt in communities right around the country.