Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are going through a unique period of population expansion at school level. In the past seven or eight years, there have been almost 60,000 extra pupils at primary level and almost 50,000 extra pupils at second level so it is an unprecedented level of demand. The Department undertakes these demographic studies on a regular basis. This has been done before and it is deemed timely with the new population trends. On foot of this, there will no doubt be the indication of areas where new schools have been planned. Since 2011, some 61 new schools have been opened. By and large, they start in prefabs as a later project for building the school would occur but that is part of an efficient use of the capital resources we have to ensure that we meet demand as it arises.

Obviously, we are very closely allied with the local authorities and we use them to identify sites. It is not for the Department to decide whether a local authority designates an area for a school site but, of course, we would notify the local authority of the implications of population development for school needs. We have regular access to local authority information. Certainly LIHAF, large projects or significant infrastructural acceleration projects would be a major input but we also receive information from local authorities on other developments they have in mind or expect.

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