Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)
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521. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number and name of schools in the Dublin 1, Dublin 3, Dublin 7 and Dublin 9 catchment area that have applied for upgrades to their school buildings, including the amount spent since 2019, in tabular form. [48334/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Since 2020, my department has invested over €6 billion in our schools throughout the country under the National Development Plan, involving the completion of over 1,400 school building projects. Government support for this investment, including by way of supplementary capital funding, has delivered real benefits for school communities.

In July, the Government announced a capital allocation of €7.55 billion for the Department of Education and Youth for the period 2026-2030 under the National Development Plan. As part of this NDP allocation my department will place a strong emphasis on provision for children with special educational needs, with a particular focus on meeting annual school place needs. In relation to project rollout for Large-Scale projects and Additional School Accommodation scheme projects, the approach will be to continue to maximise the capacity of the existing school estate as much as possible in the first instance and provide necessary additional capacity through targeted and prioritised project rollout over the course of 2026 to 2030 period to meet the most urgent and prioritised needs.

My department is now preparing an NDP implementation plan which is due for publication later in the Autumn. This plan will optimise outputs from the NDP allocations, with a strong focus on maximising existing school capacity, progressing priority projects where local capacity across schools in the area is insufficient, and ensuring delivery that is affordable, offers value for money, and meets functional needs.

In the Dublin 1,3,7 and 9 catchment area, my department has invested over €176 million in capital expenditure since 2019, of which €170 million relates to school buildings. This investment has supported the completion of 40 school building projects including 2 new school buildings. Currently 9 projects are in construction, of which 2 are new school buildings. In addition, 7 further projects are at an advanced stage of delivery, of which 2 are new school buildings.

Each year thousands of applications, covering a wide range of capital programmes, are submitted from across the school estate of more than 4,000 schools. Owing to the volume involved in this request, it is not possible to provide a list of all applications received. The table sets out the schools in Dublin 1, Dublin 3, Dublin 7 and Dublin 9 that have received funding for upgrades to their school buildings since 2019, and total invested to the end of August 2025.

School Building Programme Investment 2019- 31/8/2025