Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 663: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of pupils attending a new school (details supplied) in County Kildare; the number of applications for school placements that have not been met in the current year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34634/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy is aware the new school to which he refers opened in September 2005. The school was given approval to enrol two Junior Infant Classes per year and, when fully occupied, will operate as a two-stream 16-classroom school. This incremental development is common to all newly established schools to ensure that a shortage of accommodation at the school is avoided by an over enrolment in the early stages and crucially, to ensure that the enrolments and staffing levels in other schools in the area, where older pupils would inevitably be drawn, are not adversely affected.

Notwithstanding this position and as an exceptional matter, the school authority has been given approval to enrol three junior infant classes for the 2006/07 school year only, on the grounds that this will not impact negatively on the other schools in question.

Approval has also been given to enrol an additional 40 pupils in the classes that could not obtain places in other schools in the area. Pupils moving into the area in the course of the school year can also enrol in the school on the same basis. In this way all eligible pupils seeking places should be accommodated.