Richard Boyd Barrett: Why are approved schools still waiting?

Yeah just the one phenomena that I come across is schools that are kind of approved to come into existence but then spend years waiting for their actual school and I just wonder about the sort of planning for that because like you know I mean I can think of so many examples, Dún Laoghaire Educate Together, Blackrock Educate Together, so like there's an announcement that school has been approved years ago in the case of Blackrock or Dún Laoghaire and there's lots of others I can I can think of and then they're in temporary accommodation for years and years and years and I think should there not be a closer kind of coordination between the approval of a school and the actual provision of the money to physically put that school into existence rather than it having a sort of temporary existence for years like yeah I don't know if you could help me understand. Thank you Deputy for the question. From a department perspective, a couple of points. We have a very strong forward planning process within the department and that looks at both the long term, say beyond 2040, the medium term over the next 10 years and the more immediate term for the next school year ahead. In terms of individual schools and things like that and I appreciate Deputy you're looking at it from your constituency perspective, my job is a national remit so I've looked at it across all of the system and I suppose we've to look at it from an NDP process and where are the parameters of how I can deliver, where are our needs, so by its nature we have to prioritize and in that regard and like if you look at our NDP sectoral investment plan you look at we've prioritized special schools, we've prioritized schools in temporary accommodation that have urgent accommodation needs, schools that have significant condition or demographic needs as well and within all of those categories and all of the schools for example that are in temporary accommodation, each of them are considered on their merits and we look at where the highest priority pressure ones within that that have particular needs and moving forward with that and you would see like we would have announced 105 school building projects in our first tranche of priorities back in January and there'll be a cohort of schools within that and that they'd be progressing to construction as part of 26, 27 and to re-educate together, it would have been a school that would be part of that process along with many other new schools, buildings for schools that are in temporary accommodation and we're commencing now the second tranche in terms of the prioritization process for those in terms of engagement with patrons and management bodies and we're commencing that later this week as well, so it's a question of there's a significant needs and like when you look at the scale of what we have to manage each year circa 140,000 children either start school at junior infants or at first year or change school, so that's the scale of what we're managing, so you can look at an individual school can look at it from its own perspective, DRSA to TD can look at from their own constituency perspective, we have to take a system-wide perspective, look at what we can manage within our NDP parameters and prioritize accordingly. Yeah, okay I get you, but it's I mean but in the end of the day that's just is it just budgetary that the parameters are, because like if there's a recce, if you approve a school, if the department approves a school that means okay we know we need that school, but it's years and years and years before we're actually going to physically provide that school. Not necessarily, not necessarily, it depends on the particular circumstances and when you're looking at a new school you can be looking at site requirements and particular site issues and like you for example you'd be based in South Dublin, South Dublin is one of the more challenging areas for us in terms of acquiring sites, you know just because of you know the constraints around there. I mean just in the case of Blackrock Educate Together they've had a site for quite a few years up in Newtown Park Avenue and I just don't understand why the delays, I just don't, genuinely I don't understand. Yeah and I suppose we would have set out, I think if you if you look at our NDP investment plan and the priorities within that and back in January we announced a 1.6 billion cohort of projects for those 105 projects that we're delivering, so that's the parameters that we're working within, that's what we needed to prioritize and then the Blackrocks and the others of this world that are still in temporary accommodation, they like other schools will be considered as part of our next tranche of projects to be moving forward in terms of those that are in the advanced stages of design and you know you know pre tender stage. Is it just, is it, is it if more money was allocated then you could do more sooner? Yeah and look at, is it that you're saying it's just too big for us to manage anymore? No, no, no, look at money ultimately talks at the end of the day and I suppose in fairness to government and in fairness to the Department of Public Expenditure over the last number of years and it would have been outlined in the briefing document for you for today, significant additional capital money was provided to the Department of Education over the last number of years and that was as a result of maybe underspent capital in other areas, other departments and also in terms of the windfall receipts. So in fairness additional you know has been provided and we have delivered hugely. We've delivered over 1,400 school building projects that add capacity, be it large-scale additional accommodation scheme, modular projects since 2020. That's a very strong investment there and yes there's very significant needs to be managed and it's always a case of prioritising them. There's also the balance to be achieved as well in terms of we're in a challenging enough construction sector environment and managing that and the more you put into the system the more potentially you can drive inflation as well and we always are very conscious of maximising value for money.