Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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134. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she is aware of land available and owned by Cork City Council for new school buildings (details supplied) in Ballincollig, County Cork; whether officials have engaged with the council in respect of acquiring the land; and the status of new school buildings for both projects. [68175/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Cork City Council compulsory purchased lands for schools referred to by deputy on behalf of the Minister. These lands will be used for the development of a two school campus for the schools referenced.

These lands will be transferred into the Minister's name in due course. The capital project for development of these school facilities is progressing through the design and planning stages.

The project is currently at the initial stage of architectural planning – Stage 1, where a site and current building assessment is carried out, and initial design sketch schemes are created.

Currently the Programme Manager and the design team anticipate the Stage 1 Submission will be available to the Department in the coming weeks, and that the Stage 1 Stakeholders Meeting will be held before the end of December 2025.

The schools and patron body will be updated as to the progression of the project on completion of the Stage 1 review.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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135. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of new school building projects and extensions currently underway in Cork, by stage and date the project entered that stage, including the number of pupils currently in the school, in tabular form. [68176/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, 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. A focus of this plan will be, in the first instance, to maximise the capacity of the existing school estate as much as possible. Additional capacity will be provided through targeted and prioritised projects which will be delivered over the course of 2026 to 2030 which will meet the most urgent and prioritised needs while ensuring delivery that is affordable, offers value for money, and meets functional 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 and in this context all Government departments are expected to publish their sectoral NDP Implementation Plans shortly.

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.

The table below lists the school building projects currently in construction in Cork.