Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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1. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will provide the appropriate space for students in a school (details supplied) as per her Department's buildings manual. [23803/24]

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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Will the Minister provide an update on whether she will provide the appropriate space for students attending Fermoy Educate Together National School as per her Department’s own building manual?

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The school under reference in Fermoy was established in 2018 under the patronage divestment process. Fermoy was one of a number of areas surveyed in 2012-13 under the patronage divesting process, where there was sufficient parental demand supporting changes in school patronage. The areas surveyed were areas where demographics were not growing and therefore it was unlikely that a new multidenominational school would be established for demographic reasons alone.

The clear policy on patronage divestment was to use existing educational infrastructure to facilitate provision of diversity in areas where there was no demographic imperative to establish new schools. The reason for this approach was the imperative - equally valid now as it was then - to focus the schools capital programme on the provision of additional mainstream and special education school places at both primary and post-primary levels to ensure that every pupil can access a school place. As part of the process of identifying a suitable accommodation solution which would facilitate the establishment of the school, the Department liaised with Cork Education and Training Board. In order to facilitate the establishment of the new school, the ETB agreed to the co-location of the Educate Together school at the former technical school in Fermoy, together with some of the ETB’s further education and training services.

Prior to the establishment of the new school in 2018 under the patronage divestment process, the Department and Educate Together, as school patron, agreed that given the accommodation available at the property and the need for the ETB to accommodate some further education and training services from the property, the school would be established as a four-classroom school and that the school would maintain this configuration in the accommodation in the former technical school unless an existing school building was freed up for use in the area. As part of this engagement, the Department outlined to the school patron the importance of enrolments being managed within the available accommodation in a sustainable way and of this being communicated by the school board of management so that parents could be fully informed and in order to manage expectations.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Thank you, Minister.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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That response is almost verbatim the response that was given to my colleague Deputy Pat Buckley last week when he raised this under Topical Issues. It is verbatim the response from the Minister’s private secretary to the school, but here is the thing - the school is not asking to go above its 104 cap. It is not asking for a greenfield site or a new school. It is simply asking for the correct space for the children who are in the school at the moment.

I understand that enrolment is due to rise to 96 this year which is still well below the 104 that the Minister referred to in her reply. I suggest looking at the photographs that were posted not only in the local media but in the national media too of the conditions in which these children are learning and the conditions in which staff are trying to provide appropriate education. It is simply not good enough. It is actually intolerable what this school is going through every day.

The principal has put forward three suggestions. They want to find a solution to this because they recognise the needs of the students cannot be met in the current environment.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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As part of the engagement with the school patron, the Department did outline what was available at that time and that it would be a shared process between the ETB and the school. That was agreed at the time. However, the school has taken the decision to accept a significant increase in enrolments from 52 in the 2022-23 school year to 85 in the 2023-24 school year.

Individual school authorities are responsible, in the first instance, for ensuring the safety and welfare of children and others in their care. The configuration of classes and the deployment of classroom teachers are done at local school level. The Department's guidance to schools is that the number of pupils in any class is kept as low as possible taking all relevant contextual factors into account, for example, classroom accommodation and fluctuating enrolments.

The role of the Department is to ensure that all schools in an area can, between them, cater to school place requirements in that area. The broader position in the Fermoy school planning area is that demographics at primary level are declining and will steadily decrease for the foreseeable future.

Officials in the Department of Education have been engaging with the school patron, Educate Together, in respect of the current and future needs of the school. A technical visit by the Department is scheduled to take place shortly.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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There is clearly demand for the school and there is clearly an unmet demand if the school is not able to continue to grow or even to meet the basic needs of the children who are there.

I understand that Fermoy Educate Together National School has been given the go-ahead to open an autism class and that it has four children in the school at the moment who need access to that class but are simply not going to get it because of the lack of space that is there. This is not an isolated incident. The Minister’s office got an email this morning, which I know because I received it too, from a primary school in Lanesborough, County Longford. The email says that the school has been in contact with the Minister’s Department since last year about the need to adequately support its growing number of students. It mentions a lack of correspondence and that there has been no progress to date. It says that a year has passed without any advancement towards providing suitable accommodation and that the situation is simply unacceptable. Moreover, the demand for this school’s autism classes continue to rise. We are a State with €8.6 billion of a surplus. How is this being allowed to happen in 2024?

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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In the lifetime of this Government, over €4.8 billion has been expended on school buildings and extended accommodation. That includes 800 projects that have been completed by the Department and 300 projects at various stages of development that are currently on site. The Deputy will be aware that earlier this year, I made an announcement of €800 million in additional funding that would provide for 90 or more projects to move to construction stage so there has been no shortage.

The Deputy specifically referred to special education. Some 3,000 special classes are now in place for special education, two thirds of which have been delivered under this Government. Equally, 11 new special schools have been delivered under this Government. There has been no shortage of money, funding or resources being made available for capital builds, irrespective of what the Deputy says.

On Fermoy, I want to be very clear that there was an arrangement with the patron that an agreed level of numbers would be kept in place by Educate Together until alternative sites were made available.

A technical assessment will now take place by the Department. However, an agreement was made in the first instance between the patron body, Educate Together, and the Department regarding the availability of accommodation at any given time. That agreement was made by both parties on behalf of the school. The patron made that agreement.