John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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83. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when the expansion of special needs classes in a school (details supplied) will be approved; when funding will be made available; the timeline for any such project; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [10014/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I can confirm to the Deputy, that my Department is in receipt of an application for capital funding, under the Additional School Accommodation (ASA) scheme, from the school in question.

The purpose of the Additional Schools Accommodation (ASA) scheme is to ensure that essential mainstream and special education classroom accommodation is available to cater for pupils enrolled each year and where the need cannot be met by the school’s existing accommodation or at other schools in the area.

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 40 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. My Department has invested significantly in Dublin during this period for a total of over €1314 million.

The Department previously announced 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.

You will appreciate that there are circa 4,000 schools in total across the country, and what might be seen to be the optimum locally for a single particular school cannot necessarily be achieved across a school estate of this scale. The Department of Education’s priority for capital funding in recent years has necessarily been on the provision of required additional school capacity, particularly for children and young people with special educational needs. The Department’s policy, which is consistent with our Climate Action obligations and the State’s Infrastructure guidelines, is to maximise the use of existing accommodation. Our experience over the years has been that there are good 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 Department of Education and the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications have developed a jointly funded school sector decarbonisation pathfinder programme. It is administered by the Planning and Building Unit in the Department of Education and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland in partnership with devolved delivery support from Limerick and Clare Education Training Board, and Longford and Westmeath Education Training Board. The general principles and approach to school selection includes; schools who comply with their annual reporting obligations to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) with respect to their annual energy usage under the Energy Monitoring and Reporting scheme and secondly schools that demonstrate a strong and holistic commitment to energy management practices through participation in the Energy in Education website portal and advice programme that is operated by the SEAI and my Department. The programme selection also seeks to enable various cross sections of school types and sizes, energy consumption profiles and different elements of construction type and heritage/ conservation requirements where specific learnings are being targeted. The pathfinder programme is generally delivered in line with the above considerations and not on an application basis. Schools who wish to be considered should ensure that they are meeting their Energy Monitoring and Reporting requirements and also participating in the Energy in Education Programme. This Pathfinder programme is paving the way for, and informing, a much larger national decarbonisation school sector programme.

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.

You may be aware that the new Programme for Government sets out ambitious plans for the school sector and indicates increased capital funding under the NDP. This is very positive and will provide a good platform for investment in our overall school infrastructure.

The determination of a long-term pathway forward for the school in question will form part of this wider process and once a decision is reached the school authorities will be contacted directly.