Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 23 April 2026
65. Deputy Joe Neville asked the Minister for Education and Youth the timeline for the length of time it will take to complete the designs and full cost planning for the three-school campus in Celbridge to ensure it moves from Stage 2a to 2b pre-tender; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29111/26]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe campus referred to by the Deputy comprises Scoil Naomh Padraig, St Raphael’s Special School and Celbridge Community School. This project has been devolved for delivery to the National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) as part of a bundled school building programme (Project Shannon).
The project is currently at Stage 2a of the architectural design process. Stage 2a (the developed design stage) involves the Design Team developing the designs, fully cost planning the campus project and preparing the necessary documentation to facilitate the lodging for statutory approval to Kildare County Council as part of the Stage 2b process. The NDFA has submitted a stage 2a report to the Department for review. A meeting to discuss the stage report was scheduled to take place on April 22nd 2026. Representatives from the NDFA, Design Team, School Authorities and DEY will be in attendance. As a next step, my department's professional and technical team will provide any technical comments on the Stage submission. Once the department is satisfied that any technical comments have been addressed, the project will be considered for progression to Stage 2b, which is a detailed design stage that includes statutory approvals.
Since 2020, my department has invested over €6.7 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 4,000 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.
Government support for this investment, including by way of supplementary capital funding, has delivered real benefits for school communities.
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 along with the first tranche of projects to progress to tender and/or construction during 2026 and 2027 was published in January 2026. 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.
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.
