I wish to raise with the Taoiseach the issue of schools in my area that are still waiting on extensions and new buildings. Earlier this month I visited St. Ronan's National School. Its existing prefabs are absolutely shocking and need to be replaced. My own secondary school, Holy Family Community School, went to tender for a new building but is waiting for the Department to sanction the approval for a contractor to begin. A transition year student, Blathnaid, who is in the Public Gallery, is with me this week. Her school, Griffeen Community College, is still waiting on a permanent building, despite having secured planning. The list goes on and on: Lucan Community College, Scoil Chrónáin, St. Thomas' National School, Scoil Naomh Áine, Divine Mercy, Gaelscoil Chluain Dolcáin, Gaelscoil na Camóige and Rathcoole Educate Together. All were promised new buildings or extensions and all were approved for funding, but all are still waiting. What reassurances can the Taoiseach give to the students, the parents and the teachers who are working on this?

We are definitely working on it. As the Deputy can imagine, I could recite a similar list for my constituency and I believe most Members in the House could do likewise. We have a very large school building programme at the moment. It is great to go into some of those new schools and see how well built they are and the level of services that are available. It reminds one of how old some of our school buildings are and how much investment we need. It is never the case that we can do every project we would like to do in any one year. They have to be timelined in the context of financial and planning constraints. We must also consider the availability of contractors because of all the things being built in the country at the moment. The Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Foley, are working at the moment to see how we can speed up capital programmes generally, and not just when it comes to education, although that is a particular area. In fairness, the Department of Education spends its capital budget every year and spends it very well.