Department of Education and Youth (DEY) and Professional Bodies Engagement on School projects – Update, July 2026
The RIAI, SCSI, ACEI and Engineers Ireland, have been engaging with the Department (DEY) since December 2025 to address challenges affecting the delivery of school building projects. Weekly meetings have focused on consultancy fee delays, payment processes, and improving communication between project stakeholders.
The matters of note:
Payments and Cashflow
1. A key priority has been resolving outstanding consultancy fee payment issues on Additional School Accommodation (ASA) projects that were submitted to the Department of Education and Youth (DEY) before January 2026 (Batch 1). The DEY has engaged with schools to advise that outstanding consultant fees claims may now be invoiced in line with approved project costing. In the majority of cases this will facilitate the payment of the remaining 50% of fees due at the relevant stage of project delivery.
2. Written communication has been issued by the DEY to over 160 schools typically at Stage 1 or Stage 2 confirming the payment arrangements for the first batch of projects.
3. The DEY has informed the professional bodies that it intends to also focus on large scale project stage reports submitted to the DEY before January 2026 and coordinate payment of outstanding percentage of fees. This will result in the remaining 15-30% of fees being paid. Engagement on this work commences in August and continues during the remainder of the year.
DEY Process Improvements
4. The Department (DEY) intends to introduce a new payment process structure from beginning of 2027 as standard policy.
5. The DEY are developing a series of templates to facilitate the fee payment process to support this improvement.
6. The DEY and the professional bodies are also working to resolve fee-related issues under the consultancy conditions of engagement.
7. The DEY has also underlined the key role and responsibilities of design teams in relation to proactive engagement and follow-up with clients, including monthly progress reporting.
Member Support and Guidance
8. The Department (DEY) is working with the professional bodies to develop a series of webinars on topics related to working procedures and relevant updates. This initiative currently under development is aimed at improving coordination, providing lessons learned and strengthening the performance and delivery as part of collaboration with the industry to support the National Development Plan (NDP) sectoral plan. This series will be informed by members’ feedback and by the experience of the DEY regarding important or common challenges and areas for improvement to ensure consistent high-quality output and best practice.
9. Design Team members who are experiencing delays in receipt of payments should contact the Design Team lead in the first instance. Design Team leads should then/subsequently engage with the relevant school authority or the devolved delivery body where applicable, or the senior project contact within the Department where the DEY is the project client, citing this ebulletin.
10. If matters are not addressed as above at no. 9, and such delays are materially impacting business solvency, the issue may be escalated through the relevant professional body.
The collaborative engagement has contributed to incremental progress on a particular range of payment-related issues raised by the Joint Working Group. The engagement will continue through autumn.
Information Session 1, 30 June – What Attendees Told Us
Key issues noted in the poll (192 participants):
62% reported that school projects represent a significant or major part of their practice workload.
61% cited fees, payment processes and cashflow as significant challenges.
48% want CPD to focus on common issues and lessons learned.
45% want CPD to focus on project stages, approvals, and reporting requirements.
43% want CPD to focus on scope changes and revisions to school design guidance.
39% cited understanding DEY processes and procedures as a major challenge.
Members feedback reinforces the urgency of addressing payment and resourcing challenges while also developing webinar supports to assist members with clear processes and procedures to address delivery challenges with the school building programme.
Looking ahead
The Department informs us that they are committed to delivering on the school sectoral plan published in 2026 in line with Capital funding, and it will continue to collaborate with the industry stakeholders to strengthen alignment, coordination and improve processes to successfully deliver on its National Development Plan commitments.
The professional bodies will continue to monitor progress closely and engage with the Department on emerging issues. Where potential challenges emerge impacting pace of reasonable progress, we will explore suitable escalation channels to support the timely progression of projects.