Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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32. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he is satisfied with school provision in County Meath, particularly in expanding towns such as Ashbourne. [35027/16]

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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This is an issue I have raised with the Minister before. I am not convinced the Department has a handle on the need for school provision in County Meath, especially in the growing areas. I mentioned Ashbourne in the question but it arises throughout the county. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I know this is an issue of concern to the Deputy and I am keen to respond as best I can. In identifying the requirement for new school provision and for additional school places, my Department uses a geographical information system to identify the areas under increased demographic pressure nationwide. The system uses data from the Central Statistics Office, Ordnance Survey Ireland, the Department of Social Protection and information from my Department's databases. With this information, my Department carries out nationwide demographic analyses and so on and we have 13 new schools.

On the school planning areas in County Meath, my Department's demographic analyses show that these areas are experiencing some demographic growth. However, the level of growth and the rate of year-on-year increase are not to such an extent that would currently warrant the provision of additional new schools. My Department is keeping these school planning areas under review to take account of updated child benefit data, updated enrolment data and the impact of capacity increases in these and adjacent school planning areas.

The Deputy will be aware two new primary schools opened in 2011 and 2012 and two new post-primary schools opened in 2013 and 2014 in County Meath. A number of building projects for County Meath are included in my Department's six-year plan, announced in November 2015. In Ashbourne, my Department has recently completed new 16 classroom schools for Gaelscoil na Mí and Ashbourne Educate Together national school and also phase 1 of the project for De Lacy College, which provides for 450 places, with the remainder of the planned 1,000 pupil school to be included in phase 2 which is currently in early architectural planning. The current status of all projects, including those in Meath, may be viewed on my Department's website.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I will happily explain the reality on the ground to the Minister. I had constituents this week who told me that their family had moved from Wicklow to Ashbourne. There are a lot of people moving to Ashbourne. The child needs to go into senior infants. He was offered junior infants in Gaelscoil na Mí, though he should be in senior infants. He was also offered junior infants in Garristown, a village in another county. That is not good enough and that child is not the only example. During the summer, there was a seven-year old child with a Slovakian mother and a Polish father who was told that he had to go to Gaelscoil na Mí, even though the family already had language difficulties. Gaelscoil na Mí is an excellent school and I am a huge fan of Gaelscoileanna, but they are not for everybody. What is happening at the moment is outrageous. A councillor from the Deputy's own party told me the other night that he got two kids from Ashbourne into Ratoath College for second level education. This is happening all the time and the local education welfare officer tells us this. What is needed urgently in Ashbourne is a new stream at primary level, preferably in the English language. It has to happen. There are houses being built there and nowhere for children to go to school from what we are hearing. We must also look at the area around Duleek and Drogheda as well where I believe the Department should be planning aggressively in terms of second level provision, because the capacity that is available in Drogheda and Navan will slowly become unavailable to large parts of County Meath if the issue is not dealt with.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I understand the Deputy is going to sit down with the senior official dealing with this area. I am very happy that will take place. The Department has to work on the basis of catchments and identify whether there are available places within that catchment that are within reasonable reach of pupils. That is the approach that has been taken. There does not seem to be an overall capacity shortage within these catchments according to the assessment done by the Department. That does not mean that an individual pupil will always get the school they want. I am happy to facilitate a meeting with the Deputy and to work through some of those examples to see the origin of the problems that are arising. I have to admit that even in my area, one finds people who cannot get the school they want and there is frustration at that, even in a well-planned area. The school people want will not always be facilitated by this approach in every place. However, we have demands in every part of the country. We need to accommodate 20,000 additional pupils every year. To make sure that we can meet that, we have to have a sort of systematic approach that applies uniformly. Maybe we can discuss it further.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I can tell the Minister straight that if he moves to Ashbourne today, there is a good likelihood there will be no place for his child at school. That is not acceptable but it is the reality that we are finding on the ground. We are finding that Irish citizen children are being told to go back a year by officials from Tusla and the Department, or go back a year in another village in another county. That is not acceptable. I have to say I totally reject the Department's contention that there is no capacity issue in County Meath. There is a major capacity issue today in County Meath and we have to get to grips with it. This child is entitled to go to school and to senior infants. The Constitution guarantees that. The Minister, his Department, Tusla and whoever else are responsible have to ensure that. I found it quite shocking that Tusla is separately responsible for arranging school places. They somehow have to talk to the Department, which is not providing the places. That joined-up process has to happen as well. It is one thing that I have noticed is completely absent. There are children there who cannot exercise their constitutional rights to go to school. That right must surely be to a local school and not having to travel distances past numerous other schools.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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There are 15 projects in architectural planning in Meath. They go right across Navan, Dunboyne, Julianstown, Laytown, Ashbourne, Trim, Nobber and more beyond that. There is a very substantial flow of projects that are already committed to, which are meeting the planned expansion of the catchment. I am happy to facilitate sitting down with the Deputy to see if there are particular problems and why they are arising. As I said in my reply, we have just completed 16 classrooms in Gaelscoil na Mí and Ashbourne Educate Together. Therefore, there has been investment there and there is a flow of future investment coming. Let us sit down with the officials involved and see where exactly this problem is arising and whether it can be resolved within the system. We have to apply a uniform system to be fair to all parts of the country.