Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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Question 364: To ask the Minister for Education and Science her proposals to ensure school sites are provided in conjunction with the development of new houses and communities; the role she envisages the construction industry will play in such integrated development; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33455/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I am conscious of the pressures being placed on education providers in areas of major population growth. In this context, my Department is prioritising the provision of new and enhanced educational facilities in these areas. The prioritisation criteria, recently revised in consultation with the education partners, allocates a top priority, band-one, rating to school building projects in such areas.

My Department is included among the prescribed authorities to whom local authorities are statutorily obliged to send draft development plans or proposed variations to development plans for comment. As a matter of course, meetings are arranged with local authorities to establish the location, scale and pace of any major proposed developments and sites are reserved, where necessary, to ensure, as far as possible, the timely delivery of any required education infrastructure. Furthermore, under the provisions of the strategic development zones, SDZ, it is generally the position that sites must be reserved for schools and also that the schools must be developed in line with the housing and other developments.

In addition, the school planning section of my Department is working proactively with some local authorities to explore the possibility of the development of school provision in tandem with the development of community facilities. This enhanced co-operation has the effect of minimising my Department's land requirements and thus reducing site costs, while at the same time providing local communities with new schools with enhanced facilities.

With regard to the provision of sites for school infrastructure, the provisions of the Planning and Development Act 2000 do not place any onus on developers to provide school sites other than at market rates. I am keeping an open mind on whether legislative change might be of assistance or prove the best way forward here. Any changes in this area would require careful consideration in the context of constitutional protection for private property and, indeed, in weighing up how any reduction in the price per acre of any land given for schools development might impact on the unit costs and affordability of houses developed on the remaining lands.