Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)
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Question 506: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the efforts made in recent weeks to acquire land for a site for a school (details supplied) in County Dublin. [32642/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Property Management Section of the Office of Public Works, which acts on behalf of my Department in relation to site acquisitions generally, has been requested to source a site for the school referred to by the Deputy.

On foot of advertising, a number of proposals were received by the OPW. A Technical Assessment has been carried out on all site proposals and OPW are currently awaiting these reports.

Once a suitable site has been secured, the project will then be considered in the context of the School building and Modernisation Programme 2006-2010.

Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)
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Question 507: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if she will write to the management of South Dublin County Council supporting calls by local representatives for a compulsory purchase order to be made on lands (details supplied) in County Dublin. [32643/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Property Management Section of the Office of Public Works, which acts on behalf of my Department in relation to site acquisitions generally, has been asked to source a site for a particular school in the Edmonsbury area of Lucan.

In addition, my Department is actively considering the issue of whether to formally request the local authority to consider the use of their compulsory purchase order powers in this regard.

Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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Question 508: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the reason for the delay in providing proper premises for the Educate Together national school in the Dublin 3 area. [32645/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The school to which the Deputy refers commenced operation in September 2002 with provisional recognition from the Department on the basis that it would be providing multi-denominational education in the Clontarf/Marino/ Fairview area of Dublin.

It is a condition of recognition that the Patron must provide suitable accommodation in the stated area which must be capable of meeting the growing needs of the school. Accommodation remains the Patron's responsibility until the Department is in a position to provide permanent accommodation, assuming the school achieves permanent recognition.

In this case, the promoters were unable to find suitable accommodation in the area that it had intended to serve. Instead, it set itself up, as a temporary measure, in a vacated school building in Dublin 9, an area already providing multi-denominational education by two other schools. The school in question has not yet attained permanent recognition status.

In the context of the extent of multi-denominational provision in the area concerned, it is incumbent on the Department to strategically examine this provision to determine long term requirements and how these should best be addressed. The Department is carrying out this assessment which will be completed as quickly as possible.