Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

There are five primary schools in the Virginia feeder area. While enrolments have increased over the past decade, my Department has projected that future enrolments will remain relatively stable up to 2018. The current enrolment at St. Mary's is 380 pupils, up from 350 in 2007, so, while enrolment levels have been growing at the school, they have increased by less than 10% over the last five years.

To ensure that every child has access to a school place, the delivery of projects to meet the increasing demographic demands will be the main focus for capital investment over the next five years, particularly in those areas where it has been identified that most future demographic growth will be concentrated. The project for St. Mary's will continue to progress within the context of available funding. However, due to competing demands on the capital budget, it is not possible at this time to progress the project to construction stage.

The Deputy may recall I met a delegation from this school when I was in Virginia. It is clearly a very successful and popular school and its numbers have increased. However, there are a total of five schools in the same catchment area. I suggest to the Deputy to explore the possibility of collaboration or co-operation between those five schools because it would appear to us, from where we are, that other schools are not getting the same kind of overall increase.

This school, which is accommodated in prefabs, clearly experiences major demand. I met the principal and a number of others at that time. While it may be difficult for the Deputy to contemplate, he should consider the total catchment area of Virginia to see whether there are other solutions that can overcome the constraints. At present, we have to stick to areas where there is overall demographic demand, which there is not in this catchment area.

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