Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, for coming to the House to take this Topical Issue matter on how we will expand our school capacity to accommodate Ukrainian students coming to Ireland.

The suffering and destruction we are witnesses in Ukraine is devastating. I am sure the Minister will share my condemnation of the Russian regime and the horrific war crimes that we are witnessing in the Ukraine at Russia's hands. I welcome all of the Ukrainian people who have come to Ireland and I hope they will feel safe and secure here. As a Government, I am confident that we will do our absolute best to ensure that.

The majority of the people who have come to Ireland from Ukraine thus far are women and children. It is clear that our school system will be under a great deal of pressure to accommodate both existing students and young people coming here from the Ukraine. Within my own constituency, work is ongoing to situate a number of Ukrainian children who are now living in Dublin Mid-West, some with host families and others in hotels. I am also contacted regularly by constituents who are struggling to find a school place in the area for their child, which meets their needs. This capacity issue is particularly apparent in our secondary schools.

I foresee a significant capacity issue in my own constituency in terms of trying to situate existing students and incoming Ukrainian students into what is an already over-subscribed system. I am sure this is not an issue unique to Dublin Mid-West, but rather one that is being replicated across the country in many schools. An issue that some education welfare officers have raised with me and my office is that they do not have visibility on available school places when trying to place a child when he or she has been refused a place in a preferred school. Is there in existence a centralised Department register that could aid in providing that information bridge between Tusla and the Department? The introduction of some sort of register that would provide visibility for education welfare officers would be a really practical measure to upgrade our systems.

We are in an absolutely unforeseen, unique situation. We simply must welcome Ukrainian students while also accommodating existing students. It is possible for us to do that, but I would be lying if I said I was not concerned about how we will manage that. It is a huge challenge. I would be grateful if the Minister could outline the work that her Department is undertaking to expand our school capacity to accommodate Ukrainian students who are fleeing war. I would welcome an update on how many Ukrainian students have already been placed in schools here, how many are waiting to be placed and how we will ensure that existing students who are waiting on news of a secondary school place for September will be accommodated. Many parents are contacting me and they are really distressed because their son or daughter is at a particular point on a waiting list. As we all know, it is not until close to the summer that those who have accepted numerous school places will commit to one school placement, thus freeing up places elsewhere. This leads to a huge amount of stress on the part of parents and students. That stress will be added to this year.

Why can we not have a central registration system for second level schools?

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I want to assure the House and the Deputy that meeting the educational needs of children coming to Ireland from the Ukraine is a priority for this Government. I acknowledge the terrific work that is being done on the ground in terms of meeting the needs and the challenges. I have had the opportunity to visit a number of schools throughout the country. I visited Trinity Comprehensive School, Ballymun recently. The welcome, inclusion and effort that is being put in place by school communities is second to none.

As the Deputy may be aware, to help ensure good co-ordination and alignment of supports for Ukrainian children arriving in Ireland, I have established regional education and language teams, REALT.These teams will be hosted by the 16 regional education and training boards, ETBs, and will be staffed by existing regionally-based education support personnel working closely together to ensure good co-ordination and alignment of supports for Ukrainian children. My Department will be liaising with the teams to ensure all necessary supports for the Ukrainian children and young people are provided as quickly as possible.

The primary role of the REALT will be to assist children and young people in finding school places and to support schools in the area to meet the needs of these children as they emerge, to advise and support the Department in developing new capacity where required and to co-ordinate the provision of education services to children, young people and families across their defined area. These teams will ensure that clear, accessible information flows are in place between schools, local education support services and national support structures in relation to Ukrainian arrivals.

The regional teams will be hosted and administratively supported within the ETBs and will lead a network of other key agencies, including Tusla Education Support Service, TESS, National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, regional personnel, National Council for Special Education, NCSE, regional personnel and management body local nominees working together with local schools. All of the key agencies working together in a holistic manner will bring added value and efficiencies to the process of supporting young people and children from the Ukraine.

The teams will initially focus on ensuring that children find school places when they are ready to engage with the school system. The utilisation of capacity within existing schools across the country will be a very important aspect for addressing the need for education provision for Ukrainian children. The Department already has data on potential capacity and under or over subscription at individual schools from its national inventory of school capacity based on schools' annual enrolment returns, and utilises its Geographic Information System, GIS, to facilitate spatial analysis of this and other data. The Department will be engaging further with schools and education partners to supplement this data.

Additionally, the Department is currently working to put arrangements in place to share all of this available information on school capacity with the REALT. The spatial analysis facilitated by the Department's GIS supports the production of capacity reports to help the REALT to identify potential local school take-on capacity, based on a given geographical location, such as an accommodation centre. Reports will include data on schools within ranges of travel distances from that identified centre. This facility is expected to be available to the REALT shortly.

TESS will work with all local providers on an ongoing basis to ensure that children and young people are enrolled in school as soon as possible. As part of the process to ensure this, TESS will receive information on families with children of schoolgoing age in different locations. TESS will play a key role in identifying school places through linking with local schools as part of the REALT and in working collaboratively across all Departments and agencies to identify and remove all barriers to school attendance. The education and welfare officer teams in TESS have been briefed on the co-ordination role of the REALT. The education and welfare service is a key part of the REALT co-ordination response and will be part of the teams.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for her response. I welcome her establishment of the REALT and all the work being done to, as she said, analyse the data and demand. I do not doubt that accommodating so many new students is a considerable challenge but I have no doubt it is a challenge that the Minister and her Department will work hard to overcome.

The capacity issue speaks to the urgent need to push ahead with the school building programme. A number of schools in my constituency have building works at various stages of application and construction. The truth of the matter is they will not be in a position to welcome additional students and to keep classes at a suitable size until and unless these works are carried out. My overarching plea this evening is that we push ahead with all school building projects to ensure school capacity is bolstered as soon as possible to cater to current students and to children and young people arriving from Ukraine.

To my knowledge, schools, including Holy Family Community School in Rathcoole, St. Joseph's College in Lucan and Lucan Community College, are oversubscribed already for September and all of those schools are due to get new buildings. In the meantime, students are having to travel outside the county to places such as Kildare in order to find a school place. I can only imagine that the addition of Ukrainian students, while welcome, is going to increase waiting lists and put further pressure on those schools. We must push ahead with the school building programme. We need to do it at an advanced rate to ensure that we are accommodating all students in buildings that are fit for purpose and that we are creating positive learning environments.

I represent a rapidly growing area with not one but two strategic development zones and yet recently the Department of Education rescinded a site earmarked for a school in our new town of Clonburris, which will accommodate 11,000 people. In the context of the increased demand for school places, demand that is driven by local growth and the influx of Ukrainian children and young people, who we have an absolute moral duty to accommodate, will the Minister commit to reconsidering this decision and to establishing a school in Clonburris?

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I want to be clear that the school building programme continues apace. It is to the credit of all involved that even during lockdown, we managed to continue to do the work that needed to be done. There is no question of the school building programme not progressing as it should, and rightly so.

The primary issue raised by the Deputy related to accommodation being made for Ukrainian students. I reiterate to the House the commitment of the Government to welcoming people fleeing the war in Ukraine and seeking protection here in Ireland. I appreciate that is also the view of the Deputy, as it is the shared view of this House. The Department's primary concern is to ensure that children and young people of schoolgoing age from Ukraine are provided with appropriate educational opportunities in the coming period.

I thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to address this matter. The Department already has valuable data, as I have outlined, on the potential capacity of schools and is working to supplement this further through engagement with schools and education partners. The Department's GIS facilitates spatial analysis and reporting capabilities to better interpret and utilise this data. Arrangements for the REALT to have access to this information are currently being put in place and this will support those teams in their work to find appropriate school places for Ukrainian children.

To be clear in terms of capacity and demands, going forward, we have a significant building programme in acknowledgement that there will be growth and specific development in particular areas, which demands particular consideration. Some areas have been designated as having growth potential and as areas of high growth as a consequence of our GIS studies and engagement with the local authorities, which are a significant source of information for future planning. All of these points are taken into consideration when areas are designated and earmarked for future development.