Yesterday the Minister for Education and Youth listed 105 priority new school building and extension projects to proceed to tender and construction in 2026 and 2027 as part of the national development plan, NDP. While that is welcome for those communities, there were no objective criteria set out and no explanation as to why particular projects were selected for prioritisation over others. There was very significant geographic variation and some projects that were at a more advanced stage of planning were not listed for priority while less-advanced projects were. There was no indication as to what this means for those projects that were not listed. There is real concern in relation to that, as well as huge frustration in school communities across the State. Children are in school buildings that are wholly inadequate. I can list a number of such schools in my own constituency and there are many more across the State. What does this mean for those other projects that are already years in planning? Does it mean that they are going to be delayed by a further two years?

That is a fair question and the short answer is "No". We have to start somewhere in terms of a list and a significant ramp-up of capital investment. What we saw yesterday was an effort to move forward a further 105 projects. That list consisted of 80 large-scale additional school accommodation projects and 25 further projects to be delivered under the modular accommodation programme. A total of 45 of the 80 projects were already at tender stage and 35 are projects that have planning permission or are at pre-tender stage. The criteria for identifying projects included projects that were ready to go to construction or to tender in 2026 or 2027; the condition of the school; projects in areas with capacity pressures; growing demographics; and projects in the pipeline for a long time. I take the Deputy's point that there are lots of schools but this is not the final word. This is an important tranche and we will look to build on this. As the Deputy knows, with capital projects there can be churn and there can be further opportunities. The Government and the Department will continue to engage with those schools, including the ones in Deputy O'Rourke's constituency.