Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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120. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason his Department has repeatedly failed to provide adequate accommodation for the children attending a school (details supplied) in view of the fact that some children spend their school days in a classroom which measures a total of 24 sq. m, while his Department's guidelines for new classrooms is 80 sq. m. [29095/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The school to which the Deputy refers opened in September 2012 in temporary accommodation, pending delivery of the school's permanent school building, which will meet the Department's guidelines.

In December 2012, outline planning permission to provide a permanent school building for the school to which the Deputy refers was submitted to the relevant local authority but was refused on the grounds of site access. This was appealed by my Department to An Bord Pleanála but subsequently withdrawn to facilitate submission to the local authority of an amended outline planning permission in 2013, which was also refused on similar grounds.

This decision was appealed by this Department to An Bord Pleanála but refused. However, the Board considered that the matter of assessing alternative means of accessing these lands would benefit from a co-ordinated approach by my Department and the planning authority in the interests of achieving a comprehensive and balanced solution to ongoing access issues on this educational campus.

My Department and the local authority have met to discuss appropriate access routes with a view to a further planning application being submitted as soon as possible. My Department is also actively in discussion with relevant landowners to advance this process to a satisfactory conclusion.