I wish to raise the long delays in a rebuild project that three schools in my constituency are facing. They are St. John Bosco Junior Boys School, St. John Bosco Senior Boys School and Mary, Help of Christians Girls National School. These schools are just off the Navan Road in Dublin 7. They serve the communities of Ashtown, Navan Road and such new communities as Pelletstown. They are great schools. I have had the opportunity to visit them. I have met the student council of St. John Bosco school and I had the chance to see just how run-down those old buildings were. They are musty, prefabricated buildings with single-glazed windows and cold classrooms. They are three distinct schools, but they have come together with a vision for an education campus on the site. The Minister of State will be aware that bringing three separate schools together under one project is a challenge, but such is the commitment of the school management teams that they have done it. They have a definitive plan for how the students would move out of sections of the old school, how those sections would be demolished and how the new school would be built across the site over a period. However, there has been a real blockage in the schools getting past the notorious stage 2a of the Department's processes. This was an election issue in the general election this time last year and, as soon as I was re-elected, I asked a parliamentary question of the then Minister in February this year. There was due to be a meeting between the schools and the Department back in March. That was cancelled quite abruptly. The situation to date is that the Department requested a stage 2a addendum report from the school's design team, which advised the Department at least four weeks in advance of that report that it would come in on 30 October 2025. Despite having significant notice from the school design team, the Department did not allocate any time or resources to review the documentation when it was received. A meeting had been scheduled by the design team with the Department in anticipation of progressing the review, but again, the Department cancelled the meeting and informed the schools the documentation would now not be examined until after the new year. This is extremely disappointing, particularly given the three schools were explicitly assured that this project would move to the next phase in the first quarter of this year. I acknowledge that the Department sought additional detail and amendments through the addendum, but the lack of preparation on the Department's side to review that documentation when it came in raises serious concerns. I know and the school knows that the Department school building team is under real pressure, but it is now more than a year that these schools have not been able to get past stage 2a. The school and its design team are working quickly and efficiently and are keeping the Department up to date on progress at every stage. However, the Department is not replicating that level of engagement. These three schools, St. John Bosco Junior Boys School, St. John Bosco Senior Boys School and Mary, Help of Christians Girls National School, need a firm date as early as possible from the Department on which to meet the design team, agree the addendum report and let these schools progress to the next stage. Can the Minister of State give me a firm date for when this meeting will take place?

Sentiment score: 0.11

I thank the Minister of State for the update, but I am disappointed that he, or the Department of Education and Youth, is not in a position to give a clear date for when the schools' design team will meet the Department to, first, discuss the latest addendum report submitted by the schools and, second, give them permission to move past stage 2a. In the speech the Minister of State read, we see that the initial stage 1 report was submitted in April 2023 and it was followed by a stage 2a submission report in January 2024 and a workshop in March 2024, and then we jump to another workshop in May 2025. My concern is that this is not progressing with the degree of haste the situation in these schools requires. Let us remember - the Minister of State read it out just now - that the initial proposal, even before 2023, was for an expansion and refurbishment of prefabricated buildings. The Department itself, however, identified that the condition of all these school buildings was so poor that a complete demolition and rebuild of all three schools was needed. The Department identified that, yet we see this delayed process taking place. There was a commitment for a meeting prior to Christmas. That meeting was cancelled and now there is no firm date for when it is going to take place. I understand this is not the Minister of State’s Department, but I ask that he reflect back to the Department of education the absolute urgency of having a firm date for when this meeting can take place so that these three schools can move past the stage 2a process and the children in them can have a hope of seeing the rebuilding during their time in them.

Sentiment score: -0.05