Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising the matter as it provides me with the opportunity to clarify the current position on the provision of additional primary school places in Dundalk, County Louth.

As mentioned by the Senator, in order to plan for school provision and to analyse the relevant demographic data, my Department divides the country into 314 school planning areas. It uses a geographical information system, GIS, which uses data from a range of sources, including child benefit data from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and the Department of Education's school enrolment databases, to identify where the pressure for school places will arise across the country, as alluded to by the Senator. I note what he has said about the fast-growing demographic in Dundalk. The Department has strengthened this process this year through specific initiatives such as enhanced engagement with local authorities in respect of the information on residential development incorporated into the analysis process. There has also been additional engagement with patron bodies in relation to their local knowledge on school place requirements. ETBs, Diocesan offices and national patron bodies, such as Educate Together, An Foras Pátrúnachta, which looks at Gaelscoileanna, can also be an important source of local knowledge. This will add to information also provided to the Department by local authorities or individual schools. The Department has also utilised the information gleaned from schools under the national inventory of school capacity completed by individual schools last year as part of the primary online database.

In a regular year, addressing the increase demands for school places, while challenging, is manageable - generally through utilisation of existing spare capacity within schools, rental, temporary accommodation or other short-term measures pending the delivery of permanent accommodation. The Dundalk primary school planning area is made up of 29 primary schools. In relation to the provision of additional primary school places for Dundalk, my Department has recently approved the expansion of St. Francis National School, Blackrock to a two-stream, 16-classroom school. The project approved will provide an additional eight permanent classrooms and includes a two-classroom special education needs base.As Minister of State with responsibility for special education I am particularly pleased about that. A design team has been appointed for the project and it is currently at an early architectural planning stage. The project has been devolved to the Louth and Meath Education and Training Board, ETB, for delivery. Pending the completion of this project and in order to meet the accommodation needs of St. Francis National School, my Department has improved the temporary accommodation of two mainstream classrooms for the current school year, as well as a further mainstream classroom and one special education needs classroom for the 2021-2022 school year. It is envisaged this accommodation will be in place for the start of the next school year. This additionality is expected to cater for the future needs of the Dundalk area. My Department understands there is further capacity with existing primary schools in the school planning area.

I wish to advise the Senator that updates on all building projects are provided on my Department's website and that this is updated regularly. I thank the Senator for his particular interest in this area and I hope I have outlined to him in a satisfactory way the position on primary school provision in Dundalk.