Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 21 January 2026
132. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for Education and Youth if she will provide a list of locations for the construction of new school buildings, excluding extensions, for existing schools for the year 2026; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5024/26]
View answer133. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for Education and Youth if she will provide a list of all new extensions to existing school buildings for the year 2026; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5025/26]
View answer134. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for Education and Youth to list the locations of the construction of new school buildings, excluding extensions to existing schools for the year 2026, on a county-by-county breakdown, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5078/26]
View answer135. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for Education and Youth if she will provide a list of all new extensions to existing school buildings for the year 2026, on a county-by-county breakdown, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5079/26]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 132, 133, 134 and 135 together.
Government departments are currently in the process of publishing their sectoral NDP Implementation Plans. The sectoral plan for the Education and Youth sector will be published shortly and the first tranche of projects to progress to construction will be published in January 2026. The details the Deputy has requested will be provided in the publication. Furthermore, 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.
In July 2025, 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. Building on this 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 requirements.
In delivering Large-Scale projects and Additional School Accommodation scheme projects, the approach will be to maximise the capacity of the existing school estate as much as possible in the first instance, and to provide additional capacity through a targeted and prioritised rollout of projects over the 2026–2030 period to meet the most urgent needs.
My department’s 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 an area is insufficient, and ensuring delivery that is affordable, offers value for money, and meets functional requirements.
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 along with over 3,700 small-scale improvement works to meet priority maintenance needs and advance energy efficiency and climate goal. 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. This significant investment has delivered real benefits for school communities.
