Department of Education and Youth at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on continued delays in delivering long-awaited and long-promised school builds across County Wicklow, and called out Government for failing to deliver on political promises.
The Wicklow TD highlighted several schools that have secured planning permission, but remain stuck at Stage 2b of the Department’s building process, meaning they have not progressed to tender or construction and are not included on the current list of priority projects.
Teachta Brady said:
“I directly challenged Department of Education officials at the PAC over ongoing failures by Government to deliver critical school infrastructure.
“Successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments have allowed projects to drift for years without accountability.
“For example, Newtownmountkennedy Primary School initially got planning permission back in 2018, which was then revised in 2023, but it is still at Stage 2b and is not on the Department’s list of prioritisation.
“St. Kevin’s National School in Dunlavin is another example of a project that has been long talked about and is badly needed in the area. It was highly publicised, with many claims made about how quickly it would be progressed, but again, it is stuck in a cumbersome process at Stage 2b and is not on the prioritisation list.
“Loreto Secondary School in Bray, as well – a really badly needed facility that would increase the capacity up to 1,000 pupils. This is one of the schools still relying on prefabs going back over 20 years, and despite a lot of promises being made, particularly by Tánaiste Simon Harris, who said back in 2021 that the design and planning process would be exhausted, and again in 2024, promises were made that it would move to the tendering process that year, but here we are in 2026 and it is still stuck at Stage 2b and not on the priority list.
“All of these schools have come through the planning process and were given cast-iron political assurances that they would quickly move to the tendering stage.
“These were promises to school communities – students, teachers, parents – that have now been broken by Government and most prominently, Tánaiste Simon Harris.
“What we’re hearing now is that it will be the end of 2027 at the earliest, before these projects can even enter the tendering process, which itself will take at least another 12 months.
“It is unthinkable that progress on these projects is looking like being pushed out until the end of the decade.
“These delays are symptomatic of a wider pattern of Government failure to deliver essential infrastructure, and the continued reliance on substandard facilities and outdated prefabs is completely unacceptable.”
Ends