Schools Building Projects
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-11
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Pádraig O'Sullivan (FF), Cork North-Central

Unfortunately, I do not have my date. I get that we have invested an awful lot in infrastructure and education over the last few years. That is undeniable. I was struck by a couple of phrases the Minister of State used, including "affordability" and "value for money". We have all been in this House long enough to know that the longer we wait to do these projects, they more inflated the price becomes given the way the current market is. If we leave this another year, it could easily add another 10%, if not more, to the price of this school. Unfortunately, I think we are going to be waiting much longer than a year, judging by what the statement the Minister of State read out. I get that there is a €700 million overspend in the budget for the Department of education. The Department of public expenditure needs to talk to the Department of education and problems need to be worked through. The Department has to stay within the budget but, at the same time, this is not a problem that just emerged. While it is fair enough that the project only got planning last year, as I said, the prefabs have been there for 25 or 30 years. This build is largely to replace those prefabs.
We have another good story on the site in question. The people who established the school own the land around it. The Minister for the Gaeltacht, Deputy Calleary, is looking at turning an old building into a cultúrlann and have it as a real Irish-language hub in the centre of Glanmire. It would largely meet the needs of the Irish language community in Cork city. A lot of exciting things are happening with this project on this site, but they are all going to be held up because we are waiting for the school. Nothing else can happen until the school has initiated. I can only make the case for my constituency, as we all do here for our constituencies. This school will be the largest Gaelcholáiste in the country when it is built. That is at a time when officials in the Department would tell us that numbers in Gaelscoileanna normally do not exceed 600 or 700. This school could easily cater for 1,200 students, such is the demand.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-11