Schools Building Projects
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-10
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Charlie McConalogue (FF), Donegal

I thank the Deputy. I am taking this Topical Issue matter on behalf of the Minister for Education and Youth, Deputy Naughton, to outline to the Dáil the current position of the joint school project for St. John Bosco Junior Boys School, St. John Bosco Senior Boys School and Mary, Help of Christians Girls National School in Dublin 7. The joint school building project the Deputy outlined the background of will deliver two new 16-classroom primary schools, with additional classrooms for children with special educational needs for the senior boys school and the girls school and a new 11-classroom primary school with additional classrooms for children with special educational needs for the junior boys school.
Initially, it was anticipated that this joint project would be delivered in the form of an extension and refurbishment. However, due to a scope change to include an increase of classrooms for children with special educational needs, it was decided that new school buildings would be provided. The design team submitted the initial stage 1 report in April 2023 and, following the submission of an addendum report in August of that year, the project was approved to move to the next stage.
The design team submitted its stage 2a submission report to the Department in January 2024 for review. Upon review, some key concerns were identified by departmental officials and the school authorities and design team were advised in advance that, in place of the stakeholders meeting, there would be a further interim stage 2a workshop to discuss and assist the design team in progressing its stage 2a submission in a positive manner. The design team was asked to complete a review and audit of the floor area schedules and to refine some design elements in order to meet the approved schedule of accommodation. A further interim workshop was held on 22 March 2024 between the Department and the design team architect, where further refinements and adjustment to floor area were discussed.
Upon receipt of the revised stage 2a report, departmental officials carried out an initial review and arranged an architectural workshop with the design team lead in May of this year to discuss it further. In early June 2025, a further meeting was held with the wider design team, school authorities and departmental officials in attendance. At that meeting, the school was provided with a progress update and advised that the design team was due to submit an addendum stage 2a report to the Department. The outstanding information for the addendum stage 2a report was received in the Department on 31 October 2025. Departmental officials will carry out a full review of the addendum report and the stakeholders' meeting will be scheduled once the review is completed.
In July, the Government announced a capital allocation of €7.55 billion for the Department of Education and Youth for the period 2026 to 2030 under the national development plan, NDP. As part of this NDP allocation, the Department will place a strong emphasis on provision for children with special educational needs, with a particular focus on meeting annual school place needs. The approach to project roll-out for large-scale projects and additional school accommodation scheme projects 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 roll-out over the course of the 2026-30 period to meet the most urgent and prioritised needs.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:27+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-10