Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 8: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will explain the rationale behind his plans to build new schools in the Tallaght area, Dublin, at a time when it has failed to address requests to invest in other schools (details supplied) [34850/11]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Enrolments at primary level are expected to grow by 45,000 pupils between now and 2018. The priority is to focus on meeting the need for additional school places.

My Department has identified a requirement for new schools in the Tallaght area to cater for increasing demographics. These new schools will also serve to strengthen diversity of school provision in the area based on parental demand for the type of schools to be provided. In addition, there will be a requirement to extend some existing schools to meet the demographic need. In this regard, my Department is currently examining an application from the school to which the Deputy refers for improved and extended accommodation. My officials have met with the school and will be in further contact with the school authority as soon as full consideration of the application has been completed.

Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the fact that we are examining new schools for the area. It would be madness for a local Deputy to object to that but this school thought it was top of the list in terms of new build. They have shared a premises since the school opened and the difficulty now is that one of the prefabs they were using is defunct and the children can no longer use it. It is a gaelscoil and it now must use classes in some of the other schools, which is creating difficulties. The correspondence and discussion between the school and the forward planning unit had ceased as far as they were concerned. They had not heard anything in regard to it. Why was the Department planning new schools while failing to improve existing schools? That is the difficulty the school faced and is probably one that can be mirrored in other areas. In terms of the optics, most schools cannot understand what is happening.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The Department has given me some background information the Deputy may wish to hear which I will put on the record of the House. The school in question is Scoil Chaithlín Maude. It is a gaelscoil that shares a campus with two English medium primary schools, Knockmore Junior and Knockmore Senior. The gaelscoil is housed in temporary accommodation and also has access to four surplus classrooms in the junior school.

Scoil Caithlín Maude applied for grant aid to replace existing temporary accommodation in March of this year. My officials met with the representatives of all three schools in June of this year to explore how the accommodation needs of Scoil Caithlín Maude, together with the other two schools, could be met on the existing site. At the meeting Scoil Caithlín Maude indicated a preference for accommodation in an eight classroom separate building.

Having considered the position of the three schools a possible solution, and I invite the Deputy to explore it, might entail a reconfiguration of the existing layout of all three schools. However, the detail of how that might be achieved will need to be teased out with the schools concerned. It is intended that further contact will be made with the school shortly. The Deputy and I have now made contact on this matter and he might initiate that process. The reply is on the record of the House. If he wants further details I can give them to the Deputy.

Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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I appreciate the Minister's reply. The school cannot keep up with the number of children trying to get into it. The demand is huge. It is ironic that the numbers are dropping off in some of the other schools in the area but the birth rate in the area has grown and the school cannot keep up in terms of streaming. It is a success story and one we should reward. We will examine the proposal in regard to reconfiguration the Minister referred to but there are major difficulties within the school. There is huge support in the area for the school and no one wants to see it move out of that area.