Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal East, Labour)

I thank the Minister of State for being here this morning. I represent Dublin Fingal East in north County Dublin, which has a very young and fast-growing population. There is a lack of primary school places in the village of Portmarnock, which is an issue I have been raising for a number of months. I have tabled parliamentary questions to the Minister. Unfortunately the responses have been most unsatisfactory. I tabled a parliamentary question about primary school places and get a response about post-primary school enrolments and the pressures in that space. That is the not the question I was asking, which is why I am bringing the matter to the floor of the House. I will continue to raise it because I feel strongly, and the data will back this up, that we are in for a crisis that is manifesting itself in Portmarnock. The reality on the ground is very different from the version the Minister has outlined in her response to my parliamentary question. Primary schools have only been taking children up to the November birthday in the first round and the December birthday in the second round, which is becoming earlier and earlier this year. Essentially, children born after December are being told that there is no room at the inn when it comes to primary school places in Portmarnock. Children are beginning to have to start school at age six. This is before the crisis has reached its peak.

I will throw a lot of figures at the Minister of State. We estimate that there will be a 120-place deficit per year for children in the area in the very near future. This is likely to be a bit of an underestimation. I thank a number of residents in Portmarnock who have assisted in gathering this data for me. Based on publicly available data from the CSO and the Department of Education and planning permission websites in respect of new estates, the 2022 census captured the under-5s population to be 602 children. These children would have been in the area by April 2022, the time of the most recent census. Taking an even division of ages zero to four, that would equal approximately 120 children requiring junior infants placement and subsequent primary school class places from September 2022 to 2026. However, since the latest census there have been several large housing developments in the area, namely Dún Sí, Skylark, St. Marnock's Bay and Drumnigh Manor, increasing the population in the area rapidly. These housing developments are of course welcome but they need to be paired with increased infrastructure. I have worked up a couple of examples for the developments and the estimated and expected number of children need primary school places from these estates alone. The Skylark development has 982 units proposed, providing mainly three- and four-bed family units. Nationally 69% of households in Ireland are families, based on the 2020 figures. The Fingal county average for the number of children per family is 1.42, a conservative value based on anecdotal evidence from the Portmarnock area. Using these conservative estimates of these 982 units, there would be an expected 962 children in this one estate alone. Extrapolating the same logic for Drumnigh Manor, where there is a total of 278 units of which approximately 100 were sold around the time of the April 2022 census, leaving 170 further units, that would be an estimated 174 children within these households. That is a total of 1,136 children estimated to be residing in these estates alone once complete, a sub-population of the total Portmarnock area which is not taking into account families that are moving into the older houses of which there are many. Not all children are the same age, of course. It is estimated that over the next two to seven years, there will be a need for approximately 220 to 230 junior infants placements each year for the children of Portmarnock. The two existing brilliant primary schools in the area have a combined capacity of 120 to 140 children based on the catchment size data.

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