Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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170. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to consider co-location as an option to resolve the situation whereby parents in north County Dublin cannot access a school through the medium of the Irish language following the decision to grant patronage of the new school in Drumcondra to Educate Together; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16915/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, since 2011 new schools are generally only established in areas of demographic growth. My Department uses a Geographical Information System to identify the areas under increased demographic pressure nationwide. The system uses data from the Central Statistics Office, Ordnance Survey Ireland, the Department of Social Protection and information from my own Department's databases. With this information, nationwide demographic exercises are carried out to determine where additional school accommodation is needed at primary and post-primary levels.

When it is decided that a new school is required to meet demographic needs in an area, the Department runs a separate patronage process to decide who will operate the school. It is open to all patrons and prospective patrons to apply for patronage of the school under this process and the level of parental preference for each patron is key to decisions in relation to the outcome of the process.

With regard to the decision on the patronage of the new school which will open this September to serve the Drumcondra/Marino/Dublin 1 area, my Department assessed the applications received from the prospective patrons, including examining the parental preferences received in the applications to ensure they represented children living within the school planning area which will be served by this school. My Department prepared an assessment report for the consideration of the New Schools Establishment Group (NSEG) which then submitted a report with recommendations to me for consideration and final decision. The patronage assessment report which is published on my Department's website, while indicating substantial support for an Irish medium school, reflects nearly twice as many valid preferences for an Educate Together school in this area as for a Gaelscoil under the patronage of An Foras Pátrúnachta. I accepted the recommendation of the NSEG and the patronage of the new school remains as announced.

As the Deputy may be aware, there are currently three Gaelscoileanna operating within the school planning area.

The NSEG, in their report to me, noted the strong level of demand from parents for Irish medium education in the area and recommended that this should be kept under review in the context of future demographic exercises. My Department continues to keep the demographic data for the area under ongoing review to take into account updated child benefit data and enrolment data and the impact of ongoing and planned capacity increases in this and adjacent school planning areas.