Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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446. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills for an update on when a school (details supplied) will be included in the school capital buildings programme, considering their seriously inadequate school facilities and amenities in a land locked site and the dangerous location of the school from a road safety perspective. [8042/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that all applications from schools for major capital works must be considered in the context of capacity requirements and climate action commitments. The priority of my Department continues to be the provision of required additional school places to meet demographic requirements as well as for children with special educational needs in order to ensure the availability of a school place for every child. My Department is required to manage the allocated capital funding across all schools in the country. The Department’s approach is to maximise the usage of existing capacity in schools and, in tandem with this, to manage the progression of the existing pipeline of projects within available budgets and in line with the Government’s Infrastructure Guidelines.

The Department can identify opportunities to transform existing schools as part of energy retrofit projects, and the Department’s Pathfinder programme has been developing effective solutions in this regard, as we plan for a future wider rollout. The plan for working this through at national scale will be informed by the outcome of an Energy and Condition survey of all schools which is currently underway. It has already been completed across schools in five counties and the remaining counties are due for completion by mid-2026. The subsequent analysis of this significant amount of data will take some time but will help determine priorities going forward in relation to retrofit and refurbishment projects. The process may ultimately identify a requirement for the replacement of some accommodation, but this is not expected to be widespread. This overall process is particularly valuable in facilitating a proportionate assessment of a school’s accommodation upgrade needs relative to all other schools and allow an effective prioritisation of capital investment.

The determination of a long-term pathway forward for the school referred to by the Deputy will form part of this wider process. In the interim, the Department is open to continuing to support the school under its existing capital schemes. As you may be aware, the school has already received significant recent capital funding, although it has also refused proposed investment in the existing school which the Department believes would have dealt with some of the more immediate issues for the school. The next opportunity for additional capital investment will be a new multi-annual Summer Works Scheme with a focus on climate action and energy conservation. This scheme is expected to open for applications in 2025.