Schools Building Projects
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-16
============================================================

Marian Harkin (IND), Sligo-Leitrim

I thank Senator O'Loughlin for raising this matter because it provides me with the opportunity, on behalf of the Minister for Education and Youth to outline to the Seanad the current position in relation to the major building project for Curragh Community College in Magee Barracks, Kildare.
This project is included in the Department of Education and Youth’s construction programme which will be delivered under the national development plan as part of the Project Ireland 2040 framework. The brief for this project is to provide a new, permanent school building for the school. This project will be delivered in two phases. Phase 1 will deliver accommodation for 425 students, while phase 2 will deliver the remaining accommodation to provide for the long-term projected enrolment of 1,000 students at the former Magee Barracks site in Kildare.
Stage 1 for Curragh Community College was approved, as the Senator knows, in June 2023 and stage 2A was approved in January 2024. The project then moved to stage 2B of architectural planning and detailed design, where all statutory approvals were secured and a suite of tender documents were prepared. The design team lodged its initial application for planning permission for the preferred design option with the local authority in October 2023. The design team subsequently received a substantial request for further information from the local authority in respect of the planning application. Following its response to the local authority, the design team received the local authority’s initial decision to grant planning permission with conditions on 9 October 2024. The initial grant of planning decision was appealed to An Coimisiún Pleanála in October 2024 and the design team received An Coimisiún Pleanála’s decision to grant planning in early February 2025. The Senator can, therefore, see the timeline of what has been happening. All other statutory approvals, such as the disability access and fire safety certificates, were also secured.
The project is currently at architectural planning stage 3, tender action and award. The tender returns have recently been received and a review of them is currently ongoing by the design team to formulate a tender report for the Department’s review and comments. On completion of the tender report review by the Department, the letter of intent is expected to issue to the successful tenderer.
The school is currently located in accommodation in the ownership of the Department of Defence. Pending completion of the new school building project, the Department will continue to work with the patron holder to ensure that the accommodation is appropriate to the school’s needs. I heard what the Senator said about health and safety issues.
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. As part of this allocation, the Department will place a strong emphasis on provision for children with special educational needs, with a particular focus on meeting annual school places.
In relation to project roll-out 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 roll-out over the period 2026 to 2030.

---

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/seanad/2025-12-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-16