Ms ?ine Cusack:

If I may come in again, I will keep it short. I thank the Deputy. To go back to what he said about the local school being the most appropriate school, there are five schools within the Dublin 8 school planning area. As he has acknowledged himself, they have long-standing traditions of serving the community in Dublin 8 and do an excellent job of doing so. Our first port of call is to support those schools and see whether there is any scope to expand them to meet additional need, if and when it emerges, or any gap in capacity at the moment. Some of those schools have indicated that they are willing and able to enrol more children even within their existing accommodation. We continue to work with them to see how best to attract children to them and to support them to expand beyond that, if necessary. That goes for the schools in Dublin 8 but also the other schools within that 3 km radius that are on the bus routes and which are accessible to and serve the current community in Dublin 8 and the new community that is also growing in the area. The Deputy referenced the threshold for the establishment of a new school, the figure of 650. It should be acknowledged that this relates to an additional need over and beyond what can be accommodated within the existing schools. Since there is capacity within schools and potential to expand capacity within them, that threshold does not neatly apply.