I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House to respond to my request for better facilities for St. Cuan's College, Castleblakeney, County Galway. The complete improvements, which cost £650,000 at the time, were sanctioned in October 2001. The architects divided the project into two phases. One of these, which includes the provision of a new roof, is complete and a fine job was done.
The next phase is to provide six classrooms and relocate the woodwork and science rooms into another part of the school, as these prefabricated classrooms will not be suitable as science and woodwork rooms. The relocated rooms for science and woodwork will have to be fully equipped both electronically and mechanically. An agreement has been entered into to facilitate this. Planning permission was secured over one year ago and, from a safety point of view, these works are necessary. At present, students are crossing a busy road to get into the science and woodwork rooms and these rooms are already in poor shape.
This school has between 210 and 220 students. This year it will enrol two children with disabilities so the facilities being requested will be badly needed. It is an excellent school and produces great results. The tenders for this work are with the Department of Education and Science since January this year. I call on the Minister to give the go-ahead to these tenders in order that work can start straight away.