John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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96. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills for an update on the school building programme for Cork; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [59449/25]

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 1,300 school building projects. In addition, repurposing and optimisation of existing accommodation capacity across the school estate has been a key enabler of timely, local provision of special class capacity in a way that supports best practice in inclusion and integration. Circa 80% of new special classes in 2025/26 are being facilitated in repurposed classroom accommodation.

Government support for this investment, including by way of supplementary capital funding, has delivered real benefits for school communities. Supplementary capital funding of €210 million approved by Government has brought the total capital allocation for 2025 for my department to €1.6 billion.

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. It is planned that circa 80 school building projects will progress to construction across 2026 and 2027 as part of a 2-year rolling programme.

All Government departments are expected to publish their sectoral NDP Implementation Plans in November. My department’s 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.

My department has invested over €735m in capital expenditure since 2020 in Cork, of which €687m relates to school buildings. This investment has supported the completion of 183 school building projects including 12 new school buildings. Currently 43 projects are in construction, of which 1 is a new school building. In addition, 54 further projects are at an advanced stage of delivery, of which 6 are new school buildings.

The current status of all projects is set out under item number ten at the following link (www.gov.ie).

This is updated on a regular basis to reflect project progress through the various stages of capital appraisal, site acquisition, design, tender and construction.