School Funding Dail Éireann — 2026-05-06 ============================================================ Michael Moynihan (FF), Cork North-West I thank Deputy Cahill for his closing remarks. I take the point very seriously. He has very eloquently put the challenges facing several schools he has listed on the Dáil record as regards funding and some basic infrastructure. As a country, we have been very proud of our education system that has developed over many years but it is crucial because you have to have the right working environments for the teaching communities, leadership, teachers, SNAs and all the school communities together. More importantly, it is crucial to deliver a first-class education system. We have a huge amount of funding in place in terms of the capital funding over the next while, but we also have a huge amount of schools where there is competing demand to try to meet that. The Deputy mentioned seven schools, and if I have missed any one of them the Deputy might correct me on it, but I will endeavour to find out exactly what the issues are with each of those and report back to him. On the minor works and all the other schemes, the summer works scheme was started many years ago and has allowed funding to go into schools. It was the intention at the time that the works would be done over the summer holidays to allow for the least disruption but it has moved on from that. I take the point regarding some of the schools the Deputy mentioned, particularly in Dingle and the structural deficit that is there. I will endeavour to get a full update for him on them. He can rest assured the Government is very committed to funding schools right across the country, particularly in County Kerry. We have seen the benefit of education and the Deputy mentioned several schools that have indicated they wish to have special classes. We are working meticulously through numbers at present and I will certainly come back to the Deputy on the schools he has raised with me as a matter of urgency. I assure Deputy Cahill that I take seriously the issues he has raised regarding the school estates across Kerry. I will endeavour to make sure any bureaucracy or red tape that is holding up any the projects is cut through to deliver for him and for County Kerry. --- 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/2026-05-06/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:54+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-06