Mr. Seamus Mulconry:

The CPSMA would like to acknowledge the challenges the Department is facing as it seeks to meet the demand for school places. These challenges relate not only to budgets but also to the complexity of predicting demand. It is not easy to predict demand, particularly given some of the demographic surges around the city of Dublin. I would like to make three points. Last year, we surveyed our members in the greater Dublin area, which is one of the areas experiencing the greatest pressure, as part of an attempt to understand the admissions challenges that exist. When we mapped the 42 schools we identified as being over-subscribed, a pattern of rapid growth in demand around the external parts of the greater Dublin area emerged. In essence, it is a doughnut-shaped demand. There has not been a massive increase in demand in the inner city, but there certainly has been such an increase around the edges of the city. This has been very hard to predict. It appears to us that the greatest demand is in areas of north Dublin like Balbriggan, Cherrywood and River Valley, where there is a lot of use of prefabs. In the south of the city, we are seeing a demand for places but we are also seeing a need for existing schools in established working-class communities to be refurbished. This problem will not go away in the short term. The national demographic bulge is easing, but the demographic bulge in some areas around Dublin is increasing and will continue to increase. We have spoken to a principal in Greystones who recently learned that 700 houses are to be built beside her school. This needs to be taken into consideration as we plan for the future. I have made the three basic points I wanted to make on behalf of the CPSMA.