Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

431. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when her Department will reply to a school (details supplied) which wants to confirm a timeline with her Department with respect to a planned school extension which is urgently required, and to which it has not received a response since February 2025. [17468/25]

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

432. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when her Department will reply to a school (details supplied) which wants to confirm a timeline with her Department with respect to a planned school extension which is urgently required, and to which it has not received a response since February 2025. [17468/25]

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

549. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when her Department will reply to a school (details supplied) which wants to confirm a timeline with her Department with respect to a planned school extension which is urgently required, and to which it has not received a response since February 2025. [17469/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 432 and 549 together.

I can confirm to the Deputy that the department is in receipt of an application for capital funding for from the school in question.

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 €1.5bn.

In April 2024 the department 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 is being 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 600,000 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.

The key drivers of capital investment in the schools sector include:

• demographic growth, particularly at post primary level
• increased demand for special educational needs provision
• alignment of school place provision with new housing development
• climate action objectives including deep energy retrofit.

As the Deputy might be aware the Department of Education is currently in the final stages of an site acquisition for additional lands, at the end of January a proposed brief issued to the school Authority for 4x Mainstream classrooms, 2x Special education needs classroom and 3x Special education tuition rooms. The school Authority accepted the proposed brief and the school's application is now in it final stages of assessment as the file was forwarded to Professional and Technical colleagues to formulate the brief.

The application for the school in question is being considered in this context and I can assure the Deputy that we are working to get a decision communicated to the school as soon as possible.