A proposed large scale-building project for St. Aidan's national school is listed in section 9 of the 2004 school building programme which is published on my Department's website at www.education.ie. This proposed project is at early stages of architectural planning. It has been assigned a band 3 rating by my Department in accordance with the published criteria for prioritising large-scale projects.
My Department will be holding consultations with the education partners early in 2004 in relation to the prioritisation criteria to ensure that they have the optimum precision and are fully tuned to meeting the priority accommodation needs of the primary and post-primary sectors.
The budget announcement regarding multi-annual capital envelopes will enable me to adopt a multi-annual framework for the school building programme which in turn will give greater clarity regarding projects that are not progressing in this year's programme. I will make a further announcement in that regard during the year.
The Deputy will also note that I have put in place a new devolved summer works scheme. This caters for necessary small scale works that can be planned and delivered during the summer holidays. The 2004 programme will be updated in early spring to provide details of projects approved under the scheme.