I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, to the House.

I add my voice of welcome to our distinguished guests. I note that we have representatives from New Jersey. The small town I am from, Rathangan, has officially twinned with Freehold because Bruce Springsteen's great grandmother came from Rathangan. I look forward to catching up with them later and perhaps helping to organise a visit to Rathangan, which is a great little spot.

I will turn to the question at issue. I appreciate that the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, is here. He is doing an excellent job in a very difficult situation with particular constraints. I want to talk to him about St. Anne's Special School in Ballymany, The Curragh, and to request a clear and definitive update on the timeline for its long-awaited rebuild. St. Anne's Special School was established in 1967 by Elizabeth Bermingham and her husband, Michael, who did wonderful work to help to set up KARE for the young people of Kildare, parts of Offaly and parts of Wicklow, with intellectual disabilities. The school moved to its present location in 1974. Generations of young people have gone through the school, including my own brother, Cathal. Cathal and I, as well as another brother, Brian, went to a fundraiser for the parents' council on Friday last in Newbridge. It was lovely to catch up with very dedicated parents and the school community there.

St. Anne's is a vital education facility. As I said, it serves children and young people aged four to 18 with moderate to severe and profound general learning disabilities. It provides an essential service not just to families within the Newbridge-Kildare-Curragh catchment but also further afield. The conditions within which the students are being educated are absolutely unacceptable. One issue is funding. The current funding is no longer sufficient to meet even the school's basic operational and utility costs. As a result, some of the funding and resources intended for educational supports are being diverted to cover core expenses. This has led to shortages in critical classroom materials and sensory requirement, together with reductions in cleaning services. There are also the challenges that every school now has, namely, the rising cost of energy and insurance.

The school building itself and the existing facilities are not fit for purpose. They are overcrowded and there is a lack of adequate accessibility. There are safety concerns. There is only one accessible toilet available for up to 40 senior students. Heating systems are unreliable and parts of the premises are unusable. Indeed, the school was forced to close during a cold spell last winter due to heating failure.

Planning permission for a new school building was granted by Kildare County Council in March 2022 and that is valid until next March. However, the project has yet to progress beyond stage 2B. We know the school is included in the national development plan pipeline but we still need to have a timeline for the project moving to tender and then from tender to construction. It is a very urgent situation. I acknowledge the excellent work that was done with St. Mark's Special School and the fact that another new special school will open in September in Monasterevin. That is all incredibly welcome. It is essential, however, that along with that progress, we have progress at St. Anne's school. I am, therefore, looking forward to the Minister of State's update today.

I will take this in two parts. I thank the Senator very much. I know her huge interest in education, including special education, goes back a long time. She and I have worked together in various capacities over the last while. I, therefore, accept the Senator's bona fides on these issues.

I will go through the building project for St. Anne's Special School in the Curragh. The project is included in the Department of education's construction programme, which will be delivered under the national development plan as part of Project 2040 funding. The brief for the project is to provide 16 new special school classrooms, including the demolition of some of the existing buildings. It also includes the retention of the extension completed in 2012. The major building project for the school is currently at an advanced stage of architectural planning - stage 2b, detailed design - and the design team has secured all the statutory approvals and is preparing the suite for the tender documents.

The stage 2b submission was received by the Department of education in May 2024. It has been reviewed by the Department's officials and comments have been issued to the design team. The Department is currently awaiting the design team's clarifications. Once the stage 2b submission clarifications have been received, the Department will review the additional information.

As the Senator said, planning permission for St. Anne's Special School was granted on 25 March 2022. In the event that an extension to the current planning permission is required by the Department, the design team will arrange for the preparation of the documents for same when necessary.

The Senator will understand that there is a huge envelope of money in the national development plan for investment in education right across the estates of the schools. This project has been ongoing and there has been huge engagement on it between the Department and the school authorities. I know from the Senator's representation and, indeed, from the information we have that County Kildare and its surrounds have huge need. The Senator mentioned Monasterevin. We are trying to make sure we have appropriate education to meet the needs. I know the Senator has a personal involvement in St. Anne's as well, and I will take that in board.

We are waiting for some documentation to come back from the design team with clarifications. I ask the Senator to use her good offices to ensure that is returned to the Department as a matter of urgency. I will give a commitment that those matters will then be looked at as speedily as possible in the Department. We understand the need for the school. This has been a long time coming and the school authorities and school community have long been advocating on this issue to the Senator. I ask her to make sure that any outstanding documentation is returned to the Department. We will then take that and go through it as fast as possible to make sure we can move this project forward. It is a hugely important special education work in Kildare and we are anxious to make sure it progresses.

In my closing remarks, I will refer to the issues the Senator raised in relation to funding for insurance and so forth. The Senator should rest assured that if we get the information back, we will progress the project as fast as humanly possible within the Department.

A vote has been called in the Dáil. Does the Minister of State need to leave?

I do, unfortunately. I have been warned to be in the-----

As a vote has been called, we need to suspend.

Is it an eight-minute bell? We would have two minutes to complete.

I am not sure how long the bell is.

It is an eight-minute bell.

We can finish this, and then the Minister of State is free to go.

If the bell stops, I will still have time to get to the Chamber.

I thank the Minister of State.

I am sorry.

I appreciate that.

I thank the Minister of State for his clarification and for his support. I suggest that he come to visit St. Anne's some day, either on his way up or back down to the wonderful metropolis of Coiscéim. He would be most welcome to come just off the Curragh roundabout to see St. Anne's and the very dedicated and committed staff. The current situation is not sustainable. The students of St. Anne's deserve to be educated in a safe, adequately resourced and fit-for-purpose environment. I take on board what the Minister of State said in relation to the outstanding information required and I commit to working with the principal and board of management to ensure that it is submitted as quickly as possible. I will certainly let the Minister of State know when that information has been put in, because I know he takes a personal interest in these matters.

The Senator has undertaken to do that and will come back to us on it. The principals, wider leaderships and entire school communities in special schools, be they teachers, special needs assistants, SNAs, or bus escorts, are super human beings and do amazing work for our most vulnerable.

Absolutely.

I thank St. Anne's team for the work it does.

We are commencing this weekend a regional engagement with all the leaders of special schools in locations around the country to see the challenges they are facing. We are meeting the principals to have informal discussions. We begin in Sligo this week and we have a number of others over the next couple of weeks. We want to get a sense. I have had meetings with special schools in terms of the insurance and funding mechanisms, and we have done some work in relation to the capitation grants, but there is a lot of work that needs to be done. I assure the Senator that we will be engaging with special schools over the next while to see the challenges that are being faced.

I must now go to the Dáil Chamber.

I thank the Minister of State.