Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy McHugh, who is currently out of the country. I thank the Senator for raising the matter and I am aware that Councillor Finola Armstrong-McGuire has made many requests on behalf of this school. As a former school principal, I congratulate the people responsible on amalgamating the two schools, which can be fraught with tension. There are a lot of logistics and I say "well done" to the two principals, the staff, the parents and the children.

As the Senator is aware, the Department will invest €8.4 billion in school buildings over the lifetime of Project Ireland 2040. This investment will see a 70% increase in the school building budget which will be targeted at delivering on the twin objectives of catering for the continued increase in demographics and a greater focus on the refurbishment and upgrade of existing school stock. The Government remains committed to delivering on existing projects on the school building programme as soon as possible. In time, we want to see physical education halls to ensure children get the best experience from primary and post-primary schools.

Scoil Mhuire is a co-educational school under Catholic patronage and 457 pupils are enrolled in the school. The Department’s planning and building unit received an application from Scoil Mhuire seeking funding for a new school on a greenfield site on 5 June and this application will be considered in the context of competing demands on the Department’s budget. The immediate priority of the Department is to provide 20,000 new and replacement school places each year to ensure that every child has a school place. In the interim, it is open to Scoil Mhuire national school to submit an application under the Department’s additional school accommodation scheme, ASA, to address any immediate deficits of accommodation that the school may have. The application form is available on my Department’s website, www.education.ie.

Project Ireland 2040 is about demographics and the upgrading and refurbishing of schools. The school needs to understand that the application has just been received. It will be kept under review and should the school authority make an application under the additional school accommodation scheme or the summer works scheme, it will be processed and the decision relayed to the school authority directly.