John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I recognise the Deputy's involvement in progressing the site identified in advance of coming into the House. I am happy to respond on behalf the Minister, Deputy O'Keeffe, and I want to thank the Deputy for raising this matter. It gives me the opportunity to outline to the Dáil the Government's strategy for capital investment in education projects and also to outline the current position in regard to the school referred to by Deputy Creighton, namely, St. Mary's national school, Donnybrook, roll number 19727G. Modernising facilities in the Department's existing building stock as well as the need to respond to emerging needs in areas of rapid population growth are significant challenges. The Government has shown a consistent determination to improve the condition of our school buildings and to ensure that the appropriate facilities are in place to enable the implementation of a broad and balanced curriculum.

The forward planning section of the Department of Education and Science has carried out a study of the country to identify the areas where, due to demographic changes, there may be a requirement for significant additional school provision at primary and post-primary levels over the coming years. This study has been conducted using data from the Central Statistics Office, the General Register Office and the Department of Social and Family Affairs in addition to recent schools' enrolment data. The study indicates that the requirement for additional primary provision in 2010, 2011 and 2012 is likely to be greatest in more than 43 selected locations across the country, based on significant changes to the demographic profile of those areas. This information has been circulated to all existing school patrons who have been invited to bring forward proposals for the expansion of existing schools or indeed to put themselves forward as patron for any new primary school, should it be required.

The requirement for the establishment of new schools will of course be lessened where it is possible to expand and extend existing schools in those areas. The forward planning section of the Department is in the process of carrying out an analysis of each location to identify the school accommodation requirements up to and including the school year for 2014 to 2015. When the required reports have been completed for these initial areas selected, the forward planning section will continue to work on preparing reports on a priority basis for the remainder of the country which will include the Montrose and Donnybrook area.

Currently the school referred to by Deputy Creighton has a project in architectural planning to extend and refurbish the existing school on Belmont Avenue. The refurbishment project has been assigned a band 2.1 rating. This project is at an early stage of architectural planning and additional information to the addendum of the first stage submission is currently awaited from the design team.

Some 256 pupils are enrolled at St. Mary's national school. The school has eight classes, two of which are based in prefabricated classrooms. When the current project has been completed, the school will have nine mainstream classrooms. The brief for the project includes the conversion of some existing classrooms to ancillary accommodation and their replacement with four new full-size classrooms which will be provided as additional accommodation. A degree of additional ancillary accommodation will also be provided. The Minister met a delegation from the board of management of the school, including its chairperson and its principal, on Tuesday of this week. At the meeting, the school authorities informed the Minister of their tentative exploration of the possibility of acquiring a site within RTE's Montrose campus for the development of a new school. This was the first time such a proposal was brought to the attention of the Minister or the Department. The representatives of the school were at pains to stress that it is a tentative prospect at best. Indeed, the proposal from the RTE Authority to seek rezoning of the Montrose site is at an early stage. The school authorities clearly stated that their priority is to make progress with the refurbishment project on the existing site. They added that they do not wish to follow a dual-track approach that might cause the project to be delayed. As the meeting concluded, the school authorities once more expressed their clear commitment to pursuing the refurbishment project at the existing school site. I thank Deputy Creighton for giving me an opportunity to outline to the House the current position with regard to the building project at St. Mary's national school in Donnybrook.

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