Schools Building Projects
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-13
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Hildegarde Naughton (FG), Galway West

I thank Deputy Farrelly for raising this matter and giving me the opportunity to provide an update to the House on the school building project at St. Farnan's Post Primary School in Prosperous, County Kildare.
The project brief is to provide a new-build replacement school for a long-term projected enrolment of 1,000 pupils, including a four-classroom special educational needs base. The delivery of this project has been devolved to Kildare Wicklow Education and Training Board, KWETB. The project is in the final stages of stage 2B, which is the post-planning process, of the architectural design. This stage allows for detailed design and planning, obtaining necessary statutory permissions and preparation of tender documents. Planning has been granted and KWETB has been advised the stage 2B report is expected to be submitted in 2026. Once received it will undergo a detailed technical and cost review in line with the public spending code. All projects are subject to the due diligence requirements of the public infrastructure guidelines. Managing the time, scope and cost is crucial to staying within budgetary limits for the overall programme. Regarding additional accommodation requirements, the Department has provided temporary accommodation that includes four general classrooms, an office, a construction studies room and a multimedia room, which the Deputy referred to. KWETB and the design team have worked with the modular supplier to expedite delivery and reconfiguration of this accommodation to meet the school’s needs. At this early stage it is not possible to provide a timeline for completion of the project. KWETB will continue to engage directly with the school authorities to keep them fully informed of progress.
In July 2025, 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 NDP allocation, the Department will place a strong emphasis on children with special educational needs, with a particular focus on meeting annual school place needs. 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 course of 2026 to 2030 to meet the most urgent and prioritised needs. Government Departments are in the process of publishing their sectoral NDP implementation plans and the sectoral plan for my Department will be published shortly. The first tranche of projects to progress to construction will be published this month. 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 the delivery is affordable, offers value for money and meets functional needs.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-13