Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 October 2024
189. Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice asked the Minister for Education when a decision will be made in respect of an application for additional school accommodation devolved project submitted by a school (details supplied) in April 2024; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39955/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe school referred to by the Deputy was approved to enter the Department’s pipeline of school buildings, in 2021, for a project to provide 2 SET rooms and 1 general classroom. The responsibility for delivery of the project has been devolved to the school authority. The project in question was approved through its initial architectural design stage following a review by my department’s professional and technical officials and subsequently progressed to planning.
The project is currently at Stage 2b (post planning) and the school has submitted a report for this stage. The project is currently being reviewed from both a technical and cost perspective in accordance with the requirements of the Public Spending Code. All projects, including this one, will undergo the necessary due diligence outlined in the public Infrastructure Guidelines. Managing timing, scope, and cost is crucial to staying within budgetary limits for the overall program. Department's officials will be in contact with the school when this review has been completed to advise on next steps.
There is an overall pipeline of some 1300 projects across the school system. The status of all projects is listed on a county-by-county basis at www.gov.ie. and this is updated on a regular basis to reflect project progress through the various stages of capital appraisal, site acquisition, design, tender and construction. My Department has a strong track record of delivery of school building projects and this was achieved again in 2023 notwithstanding the wider construction sector environment of high inflation, labour shortages and supply chain issues. Under Project Ireland 2040, we are investing over €5 billion during the period 2021 to 2025, to add capacity and develop and upgrade school facilities across the country for the almost one million students and over 100,000 staff that learn and work in our schools every day.My Department is very appreciative of the strong support provided by Government for our education budget. As part of the supplementary budget, €405m additional capital funding was provided in 2023. This helped to alleviate capital funding pressures that arose in 2023 which was reflective of the strong delivery by my department of school building projects – particularly to support mainstream provision accommodating Ukrainian students and special education needs provision. My department’s overall capital out-turn for 2023 was €1.264 billion.We continue to have a strong pipeline of projects for delivery under the school building programme involving circa. 300 projects currently at construction, which include 34 new school buildings. We also have a large modular accommodation programme delivering urgently needed school places. The Department has always operated a tightly prioritised approach to the school building programme, focused over recent years on the delivery of additional capacity where required, and this will continue to be the case.
