Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Skerries Community College was approved for a project to cater for a school with 1,300 students and four classes for students with special education needs. The project was devolved for delivery to the ETB. Significant technical challenges for the delivery of the project on the current site were identified. The Department met with the ETB in August in order to assist the ETB progress the project. The ETB is now engaging in identifying options to advance the project in light of the significant site constraints discussed with the Department's professional technical officials.

In order to address the immediate enrolment requirements of the school, the Department approved modular accommodation comprised of three mainstream classrooms, a home economics room and an art room. This is expected to be completed shortly. My understanding is that that will be in quarter 1 of next year. The Department will continue to engage with the ETB regarding both the school's immediate and long-term accommodation needs, including with a view to facilitating the future provision of special classes at the school.

In relation to the particular issue of the 53 people on the waiting list, it is essentially an enrolment policy issue for the school. My understanding is - this is not from a departmental source - that the expectation is that the majority of the people on the list will be offered a place. That is the expectation. It was done a little bit differently this year to previous years, which is why the waiting list was longer. My understanding is that the majority of the people on the waiting list will get offered a place. It goes through a round of offers based on different categorisations of priority needs and so on, in terms of having siblings in the school, being in the catchment area and being from a feeder school. Those are the filters, for want of a better word, that will need to be got through, I assume within a period of weeks. My understanding is that those parents will have clarity then.

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