Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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405. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when the tender will be released for the building of a school (details supplied) given the urgent situation facing the school and the potential deadline faced vacating their current temporary accommodation. [65761/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The building project for the school referred to by the deputy will provide a new 600 pupil post-primary school building and accommodation, including classrooms for children with special educational needs.

This project, which has planning permission, granted on 13th May 2024, is assigned to my Departments Design & Build delivery programme which uses a professional external Project Manager to progress the project through the relevant stages of architectural planning, tender and construction.

Department officials and the external project management consultants are currently reviewing the works and site-specific requirements to ensure the tender documents are up to date and in line with my Departments’ technical guidelines documents.

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 during 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 will continue to keep the school and its patron body updated on progress and next steps.