Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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443. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of schools in prefabricated buildings in the State, and the timeline for the school to receive a permanent building, in tabular form. [16572/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Prefabricated accommodation in schools may be rented or purchased and funded by the Department or by the school authority itself, with or without Department sanction. For that reason, it is not possible to provide the Deputy with a complete picture in respect of all prefabricated accommodation at schools as requested.

Within the context of a rapidly increasing school population my Department's priority is to ensure that every child has access to a physical school place. In this regard, it is sometimes necessary to make use of prefabricated accommodation, in order to meet the accommodation needs of schools.

The timing and duration of the accommodation need is also considered in determining the optimum accommodation solution – a short-term accommodation requirement does not require a long-term accommodation solution. For example, a school may require a temporary building in circumstances where a major school construction project is planned. Such temporary accommodation is removed when the major project concerned is completed. The length of time it is necessary to make use of temporary rented accommodation will vary from project to project.

My Department is additionally taking an integrated approach with the Prefab Replacement Programme through the replacement of prefabricated units as part of large-scale and devolved projects and as part of new projects approved under the Additional School Accommodation scheme.

I can inform the Deputy that 429 schools currently have one or more rooms in rented prefabricated accommodation. Some of these rental arrangements are due to come to an end due to changing circumstances at the school, but the vast majority of the schools with rented prefabricated accommodation have school building projects in the pipeline which will replace the rented accommodation. In the case of 57 schools, their school building projects are currently at construction, and a further 130 schools have projects at an advanced stage of design or at tender.

The Deputy will appreciate that it is not possible to give an indication of the timelines for the completions of all of these projects, which are subject to various factors such as statutory approvals and procurement processes. However, these projects will continue to be advances as part of my department's overall capital programme and in line with the Government's Infrastructure Guidelines.

Since 2020, my department has invested over €5.8 billion in our schools throughout the country, involving the completion of over 1,300 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 €1.50bn.

Good progress continues to be made with the rollout of projects, and the current status of projects being delivered is listed in tabular format, on a county by county basis, on the Department’s website at www.gov.ie and is updated regularly.