2026-02-05

Ireland's greatest asset is us. It is our people - our hard-working, skilled and educated women and men. For this country to continue to prosper, we must invest in us for the future, which means investing in our educational system. Fingal, as the Tánaiste knows, is rapidly growing. It is the youngest area in the State. We are delivering homes in Rush, Lusk, Skerries and Balbriggan but this housing delivery has to be matched by delivery of appropriate school places in safe, warm and modern buildings. Schools are at the heart of our communities. They are where our children learn, families connect local life is built. When school infrastructure falls behind, entire communities are also left behind. I want to raise two capital projects that are very close to my heart for the communities of Skerries and Rush. I am determined to see both of those projects delivered. The first is in Skerries, my home town. Skerries is its own town planning area with six feeder primary schools. At primary level, there are currently four special classes, with two more under construction. However, there are no special classes at post-primary level in the only second secondary school in the town, my old school, Skerries Community College. Families are being forced to travel long distances outside their communities to access appropriate places but too many others are facing the prospect of having no suitable school places for September 2026. That is simply not acceptable. That undermines inclusion, places a huge strain on families and weakens community life. Urgently delivering dedicated special education provision at post-primary level in Skerries is a necessity. Second, the population of Rush has grown by over 60% in the past 20 years. It continues to rapidly expand. The building project for a combined campus for two excellent schools, St. Joseph's Secondary School and Gaelscoil Ros Eo, is now approaching submission to the Department for approval to tender. Once that application is lodged, the community needs a very swift and positive response from the Department. This urgent action is not only needed for the students and parents but for the principals, the school faculties and the support staff who are working in appalling conditions. Both schools regularly flood, leading to damp rooms and teachers mopping them out for hours before children arrive at the campus. Gaelscoil Ros Eo is in prefabs in the car park of a Gaelic club for nearly two decades so this campus project is critical, not least for the community but also to deliver more homes in Rush. There is a planning application for 48 homes on the site of the secondary school, which cannot progress until the school is built. Could the Tánaiste please give me an update as to the status of both these projects, and a commitment to work with me and the Ministers for education and public expenditure to make sure these projects are urgently delivered?

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue with me in relation to Skerries and Rush. It is not the first time she has raised it with me and I acknowledge that she represents and is from a community that is in the fastest growing area of the country with one of the youngest populations. She makes this point as we make progress on housing, and I am pleased to see we are making progress on housing. There has been a 20% increase in the number of homes built last year compared to the previous year. We have to make sure the infrastructure goes with it and we will never regret investing in education. That is why the Minister for education, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, last week published her Department's €7.55 billion national development plan, NDP, sectoral investment plan. I want people to know that this is just the first tranche. There is lots of capital to spend in this country, thankfully, and we will deploy that capital as projects occur and get ready. Over the course of 2026 and 2027, there will actually be construction work at approximately 10% of the overall school estate. I say that to give people some context. On the specific projects the Deputy mentioned, the first related to Skerries Community College. I understand the building project for this school has been devolved for delivery to the Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Education and Training Board, ETB, under a service level agreement. There were significant technical challenges in the delivery of the project on the current site and given the complexity of the challenges on the site, the Department is engaging with the ETB as patron of Skerries Community College to advance the provision of the required accommodation at the school, including, very importantly, the issue the Deputy mentioned regarding the facilitation of special educational classes. I am advised that the ETB has received agreement to progress a project for Skerries Community College under the Department's modular accommodation framework. This will address the immediate - it is only the immediate, I know - accommodation requirements for the school community. It will facilitate the delivery of additional accommodation in respect of four special classes, four general classrooms, a multimedia room and ancillary accommodation. St. Joseph's Secondary School and Gaelscoil Ros Eo is a shared education campus project in Rush. I understand that the project has been devolved to Catholic Education, an Irish Schools Trust, CEIST, the patron body. The brief for the secondary school includes the provision of a 1,000-pupil post-primary school building, four special classes and other ancillary accommodation. The brief for Gaelscoil Ros Eo will be the delivery of a 16-classroom primary school with one special education base and other ancillary accommodation. This project is currently at stage 2B post the planning and architectural design processes. This allows for detailed design and planning, obtaining necessary statutory permissions and preparation of tender documents. The Department is currently awaiting the submission of the stage 2B report, which the Deputy tells me is imminent and which CEIST has advised it is currently finalising. I will work with the Deputy, as will the Minister for education, on both of these projects. She mentioned a third one to me the other day, Rush National School, which a revised planning application is now required for. The Minister will sit down with the Deputy on these shortly but I want people to know - people in her constituency and more broadly - that the educational capital plan is tranche 1. We have plenty more to come in the time ahead and we will work to progress St. Joseph's Secondary School, Gaelscoil Ros Eo and Skerries Community College.

I thank the Tánaiste. I appreciate his really constructive engagement. I know delivering schools is as important to him as it is to me. I thank him for also mentioning Rush National School, which is something I have raised with the Minister for Education and Youth. I will continue to raise it with her and the Tánaiste. I look forward to welcoming the Tánaiste in the coming years to the opening of both of these school projects. As he will be aware, I will continue to raise these repeatedly with him until I see the shovels in the ground.

Of that I have absolutely no doubt, knowing the Deputy well. Please do because this is what we need to do. We have to invest in housing but also in communities like hers. My own is not that dissimilar, where there is an increased volume of development and a growing young population. We need to make sure that we put that social and educational infrastructure in place as well. I get the acuity of this and the pressure that schools and parents are under too. Tranche 1 of the capital plan last week was a really important step. We have got to start somewhere. It gets a lot of school projects moving but I also know other schools are saying, "Hang on, we want to move too". My message to them is that we will keep working with them and constructively engaging, and there will be more projects moved in the time ahead.