Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 January 2026
546. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Education and Youth the expected timeframe for approval of the design and scheduling of the capital works required to restore a building for double-stream mainstream use, including autism classes, at a school (details supplied). [3888/26]
View answerI can confirm to the Deputy, that an application has been received from the school in question for accommodation under the Additional School Accommodation scheme.
The purpose of the Additional School Accommodation (ASA) scheme is to ensure that essential mainstream classroom and Special Education Needs (SEN) accommodation is available to cater for pupils enrolled each year, where the need cannot be met by the school's existing accommodation.
Since 2020, my department has invested over €6 billion in our schools throughout the country under the National Development Plan, involving the completion of almost 1,400 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.
The NDP Implementation Plan for the Education and Youth sector and the first tranche of projects to progress to construction will be published by my department shortly. This NDP Implementation 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.
I can assure the Deputy that my department is very cognisant of the requirement around the delivery of accommodation for the school in question and is working to advance matters as quickly as possible.
