The Minister for Education & Skills, Richard Bruton, has officially opened 24 new classrooms with a Special Needs Unit at Stepaside Educate Together National School in Sandyford, Dublin.

The new building will cater for over 600 pupils. Over €8m was invested by the Government to provide these new state of the art facilities for Stepaside Educate Together National School. The total capital spend in the Dublin region alone on school buildings is over €900m in the last seven years.

The government set the ambition to make Ireland's education and training service the best in Europe by 2026. Ensuring our children are educated in state of the art facilities is important to delivering on that ambition and we are now building more school places than ever before. Project Ireland 2040 provides for a €11.9 billion investment in the education and training sector over the period 2018 to 2027. This will deliver a 70% increase in schools capital funding compared to the past decade (€4.9 billion to €8.4 billion).

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Speaking at the official opening, Minister Bruton said: "I am delighted to be here at Stepaside Educate Together National School today to mark the opening of these fantastic new facilities. Today is a great day for the whole school community. Students in Sandyford will now greatly benefit from these new state of the art facilities.

"We recently announced an €11.9billion investment in education as part of Project Ireland 2040 which sees a boosting of the school building budget by 70% over the next ten years. This €11.9billion investment reflects the importance this government puts on education and will enable our ambition to make Ireland's education and training service the best in Europe by 2026. We are investing in modern, state of the art facilities in our schools, higher and further education institutions, which are energy efficient and fit for purpose for the curricular reforms we are making."

(MH/CM)