We are all acutely aware of the substantial cost overrun associated with the national children's hospital. Unfortunately, it is not the only State contract awarded which has seen significant delays and cost overruns. Curraghmore national school in Mullingar is one such contract. The Minister visited the school in advance of the local elections.

It was promised to be opened in September of this year; it was not opened. It was promised to be opened in October; it was not opened. It was promised to be opened by Christmas and again it is failing to meet that deadline. I do not expect the Government to micromanage every State contract, but I expect that contractors who continually fail to meet their contractual obligations should not be permitted to get further State contracts. Will the Taoiseach ask the Minister for Education and Skills to revert to me with an exact timeframe for when the pupils and staff can expect to be in their new school in Curraghmore in Mullingar? Will the Government consider introducing legislation to ensure that contractors who continually fail to meet their targeted timeline and come in over budget will not be looked upon favourably for further State contracts?

There are two questions, one on overruns and the other a request for the Minister for Education and Skills.

I will ask the Minister, Deputy McHugh, to respond directly to the Deputy on the school in Mullingar. Hopefully we can get that school open as soon as possible.

I point out that overall the schools building programme, the roads programme and the Irish Water programme are running on schedule and on budget. Of course, some projects are ahead of schedule and some are behind schedule. Within the confines of European law, we are examining how we might improve public procurement to allow us either to blacklist certain contractors, which is very hard to do unless there is a court conviction against them in which case it is possible, or to have our scoring system take better account of past performance or past underperformance. The Deputy should bear in mind that as a significant number of tenders end up in litigation, we need to get it right. The last thing we want is not to award a contract to particular contractors, have them sue us, delay the whole thing and then find they win.