2026-01-20

Go raibh maith agat. I thank the Minister of State for taking this Topical Issue matter. I appreciate it is not his Department, but I hope he will bring this matter back to the Department of education and that the officials tuning in will be very aware of the concerns around Bunclody Community College. Bunclody Community College is a school with an enrolment of 310 students. This is an increase of 42% since 2019, so it is a rapidly growing school. It is a very good school, with a very committed and excellent teaching staff and some amazing students. I met the student council there. The school had a very successful project at the Stripe Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition around misinformation and disinformation only two weeks ago. This is a really dedicated team of people working to provide education in an area that has a lot of disadvantage. It is a DEIS-designated school, a champion school of sanctuary and also a pilot school in the supporting Traveller and Roma, STAR, pilot project of the Department to increase participation among those from the Travelling community. This is a really good school as well, when we look at the whole-school evaluations, in terms of the quality of education delivered. I have to say that of all the schools I deal with in my constituency, and indeed beyond, in terms of the physical structures, this is by far the worst. The school operates on two campuses. It has to because of the expansion of the school. There is a 500 m walk between the two campuses. A lot of the prefabs are on the separate campus. Students have to walk the 500 m, which involves crossing a busy regional road. We are talking about four or five minutes being lost every time for staff and students when they have to travel across between the two campuses. There are only three regular classrooms in this school not currently in prefabs. I do not think there is any other school in the country like this and I will challenge people in this House to identify any other school that is in this situation. Some of the prefabs have been there for more than 20 years. One of the difficulties is that one of the first parliamentary questions I asked in this term was around what was happening with Bunclody Community College. The response I received was that, "The project referred to by the Deputy, has been devolved for delivery to Waterford and Wexford Education and Training Board, WWETB", and, essentially, that is at stage 2b. As colleagues in this House will know, I tend to refer to stage 2b as purgatory. It is that sort of holding place that the Department of education has. If a school is told it is in stage 2b, it never knows when it is necessarily going to get out of it. I have eight schools in the constituency in this situation. In this case, this project has been on the go since at least 2014. In 2019, there were announcements that were welcomed. In fact, the then Minister, Paul Kehoe, described it as one of the most needed investments in a Wexford school. Deputy James Browne, now the Minister of State's ministerial colleague, made very clear about how this project, after many years of campaigning, was finally going to be delivered. That was in May 2019. Complete planning permission for the project was granted in April 2023, so that permission will obviously run out in 2028. Every time I have asked a parliamentary question about this issue since I have come in here, from that first one in January, to one on 29 July, to a further one on 25 November, I have got the same answer again and again, namely, that it is at stage 2b. I hope the Minister of State will fill me with a bit more optimism from the Department and that, as with the previous question, he will not simply read the standard script.

I thank my friend and colleague. I will read the standard script because the previous question I answered was for my own Department. This one is in relation to the Department of education, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Naughton. I thank the Deputy for raising this matter as it gives me, on her behalf, an opportunity to update the House on the current position regarding the school building project for Bunclody Community College, Bunclody, County Wexford. The project referred to by the Deputy is devolved for delivery, as he said, to Waterford and Wexford Education and Training Board. The project brief is to provide an extension to the existing school building, as well as the appropriate refurbishment of the existing buildings to be retained for ongoing educational use. This will cater for a long-term projected enrolment of 550 and provide two special education classrooms. The project is currently at stage 2b of the architectural design process. This stage allows for detailed design and planning, obtaining necessary statutory permissions and preparation of tender documents. A stage 2b report has been submitted to the Department from WWETB. The report is undergoing a detailed technical and cost review in line with the public spending code. All projects, including this one, are subject to the due diligence requirements of the public infrastructure guidelines. Managing timing, scope and the cost is crucial to staying within budgetary limits for the overall programme. Once the review is complete, the outcome will be communicated to WWETB as the delivery body for this project that will continue to engage directly with the school authorities to keep them fully informed of progress. The length of time a project takes to deliver depends on a number of factors, including scale and complexity, and is subject to the time it takes to progress through the various project stages and the statutory approval process, which I understand, as the Deputy said, it has already gone through. In July 2025, the Government announced a capital allocation of €7.55 billion for the Department of Education and Youth for the period from 2026 to 2030 under the national development plan. As part of this NDP allocation, the Department will place a strong emphasis on provision for children with special educational needs, with a particular focus on meeting annual school place needs. In relation to project roll-out for large-scale projects and additional school accommodation scheme projects, the approach will be to continue to maximise the capacity of the existing school estate as much as possible in the first instance and provide necessary additional capacity through targeted and prioritised project roll-out over the course of the period from 2026 to 2030 to meet the most urgent and prioritised needs. The NDP implementation plan for the education and youth sector and the first tranche of projects to progress to construction will be published by the Department shortly. This NDP implementation plan will optimise outputs from the NDP allocations, with a strong focus on maximising existing school capacity, progressing priority projects where local capacity across schools in the area is insufficient, and ensuring delivery that is affordable, offers value for money, and meets functional needs.

I thank the Minister of State for his response. I appreciate it is not his Department but, frankly, there is nothing new in this. This is deeply, deeply frustrating. The challenge for this school and for the staff, the students and the wider community - and I spoke with my good friend and colleague, Councillor Barbara-Anne Murphy, who chairs the board of management of the school - is that this school is tired of, frankly, false promises from the Department. This situation has been running for well over a decade in terms of trying to move things forward. The difficulty for the school is it sees other schools in the wider community where those projects have progressed much more quickly. As I said, I reiterate the point, in terms of the conditions that this school has to operate under, there are two campuses where students and staff have to travel - the Minister of State knows what the weather was like today - across a busy regional road, losing valuable education time. We are in a situation where the majority of the school is in prefab classes. That is not acceptable in 2026. The Minister of State knows I am one of the most passionate advocates for investment in education in this House and support the capital building programme. Lots of work is being done. The question has to be asked as to why this project has taken so long. I invited the Minister of State with responsibility for special education, Deputy Michael Moynihan, to this school because this school has an excellent record in that area. It was willing to expand further in this area, something that not all schools are willing to do, yet we are still not seeing any progress. The Department needs to be much more honest with schools as to the exact timeframe that is involved. This is one of the worst schools I have come across in the country in terms of its physical structure, even though the quality of education is excellent. It deserves a clear answer now from the Minister for education as to when construction work will finally start.

I thank Deputy Byrne for raising this project forcefully and working with Councillor Barbara-Anne Murphy in advocating on behalf of the school, the teachers and the students who go to this school. As I said, the NDP allocation, which was announced last year, was €7.55 billion over 2026 to 2030. The Deputy made a very strong case that this school is part of that allocation process. All I can say is that I will bring the Deputy's message, that he brought very forcefully to the floor of the Dáil, to the Minister for education. It is just the most recent time that he has raised the issue. I know he has been advocating on behalf of the school for a long time. It is a fair request that he has made, that, at the very least, the school authorities should be made aware of an indicative, realistic timeframe as to when they can experience the new building.