School Accommodation
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-03
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Jerry Buttimer (FG), Cork South-Central

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta as an Saincheist Tráthúil a chur os comhair an Tí maidir le cursaí oideachais i gContae Mhaigh Eo. I thank the Deputy for raising the matter of schools and the various stages they are at in the Department of education in County Mayo. I am taking this on behalf of the Minister for education. She apologises for not being able to be here.
The Deputy highlighted a number of schools.
I have made a list of them that I will refer back to the Department for the Deputy. She is right. Schools need certainty to plan for the future and that is the fundamental that we should all adhere to.
The Department provides details of all live and completed projects. Information for ASA in schools in County Mayo is available on the Department’s website and further engagement is being made available. Since 2010, a total of €37.12 million in capital funding has been provided for ASA projects in County Mayo. There are currently 27 ASA projects at preliminary design stage, 21 projects at detailed design, one project at tender stage and 11 projects on site at construction stage. In addition, 42 ASA projects have been completed since 2020.
As the Deputy will know, the Department recently published the NDP - she referenced in terms of the number of schools not included - for the period from 2026 to 2030. This NDP sectoral plan places an emphasis on maximising existing capacity and the prioritisation of school building projects to meet the most urgent needs. It is fair to say that in this context, the emphasis on special education roll-out is being applied.
Of the total €7.5 billion investment, it is envisaged that around €5 billion will be used for project roll-out to support the delivery and modernisation of school buildings across the large scale, additional accommodation, modular, and annual September accommodation needs programmes. Over the course of this year and next year, there will be construction work at around 10% of the school estate. These projects will, when completed, provide an additional 57,000 modernised school places with a strong special education needs focus in all projects. The Department will continue to lead and to build on the progress made over recent years with the continued roll-out of projects on a prioritised basis to meet the most urgent needs in terms of provision of additional capacity and modernisation of existing facilities. As I have said and the Deputy knows well, the Minister has published a list of the 105 school building projects that have been announced.
In terms of the issues raised by Deputy Keogh, clarity has been provided to schools on annual December to January payment period for minor works and ICT grants to schools. The minor works grants for the 2026-27 school year were issued in December and the ICT grants were issued in January. The Minister, Deputy Naughton, is also commencing arrangements for increasing minor works funding at primary level and introducing minor works funding at post-primary level. Investment under the plan will also involve the delivery of 297 projects under the climate action summer works scheme. This includes 16 projects in County Mayo. The Department will continue to engage with patrons and schools in County Mayo and across the country to inform the progression of projects across the capital programme.
I know there are schools on the list the Deputy read out that have not been allocated funding. Even though they have not been included in the first tranche of the prioritised projects, it is important that they engage and that we, as a Government and a Department, engage with the Deputy on the individual projects to see where they are in terms of that pipeline.
She raised an important point on the status of projects, the information needed and the clarity needed for school communities and parents associations. In this context the Department will fund and invest in school communities where appropriate. I will bring the list that the Deputy outlined here back to the Department and I thank her for raising the matter.

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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/2026-03-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-03