School Accommodation
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-07
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Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (FF), Carlow-Kilkenny

I thank the Deputy for raising this serious issue. I am taking this on behalf of the Minister for education. The Department of education wishes to outline the current position in relation to the new school building for Scoil Chrónáin in Rathcoole, County Dublin. Scoil Chrónáin is an all-Irish, co-educational primary school under the patronage of the Archbishop of Dublin. The brief for the permanent project is to provide a new 16-classroom primary school and accommodation, including two classrooms for children with special educational needs on its permanent site in Rathcoole, County Dublin. This project will be delivered under the Department’s employee-led design team, which uses a professional external project manager to co-ordinate and drive the design team to achieve the best possible timeframe for the project through the stages of architectural planning to tender and then to construction.
The project progressed to tender on 28 February 2025.
The tender returns were received on 2 May 2025 and tenders were evaluated by the design team. Following due diligence and discussions with the preferred tenderer, the company withdrew its tender. The Department’s design team is now carrying out due diligence in relation to the next-placed tenderer, with a view to submitting a tender assessment report for the Department’s consideration. Projects are subject to relevant due diligence at each stage in the process, within the context of overall programme and budgetary parameters.
The Department and the design team are monitoring the current progression of the project in terms of planning permission and, if necessary, will prepare the documentation for an application to extend the current planning permission ahead of its expiry later this year. That is good and it is important to get that information back to the parents and teachers. They are looking at the planning permission ahead of its expiry later this year. They are seeking to extend it.
The key factor for determining the level of staffing resources provided at individual school level is the staffing schedule for the relevant school year and pupil enrolments on the previous 30 September. The staffing schedule operates in a clear and transparent manner and treats all similar types of schools equally. The enrolment of Scoil Chrónáin fell from 381 pupils to 354 pupils, which is 19 pupils below the threshold required to retain the 16th class teacher. As a result, the school's mainstream staffing is to reduce to 15 teachers in September. The staffing arrangements for the 2026-27 school year are set out in Circular 0025/2026. As the Deputy knows, it goes on the year before. That circular contains information and application forms on the staffing appeals process, whereby schools may appeal their staffing allocation to the primary staffing appeals board. The appeal submitted by the school was unsuccessful. The appeals board operates independently of the Department and its decision is final.
The Department has a strong track record of delivering the school building programme, with more than €6.9 billion invested since 2020. This has delivered approximately 1,400 completed school building projects and more than 4,000 small-scale improvement projects. A total capital allocation of €7.55 billion for the Department of Education and Youth has been confirmed for the period 2026-30 under the national development plan. As part of the NDP implementation plan for the education and youth sector, a first tranche of projects to progress to tender and construction during 2026 and 2027 was published in January 2026. This list includes the permanent school building project for Scoil Chrónáin National School. The Department will continue to keep the school and its patron body updated as the project progresses.

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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/2026-07-07/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-07