Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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165. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he or his Department assessed the need for a secondary school in the Citywest area of Dublin 24; if he has taken into account that there are four primary schools in the area and no secondary school; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33703/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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In identifying the requirement for additional school places in a school planning area, 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 Department's own databases. With this information, my Department carries out nationwide demographic analyses to determine where additional school accommodation is needed at primary and at post-primary level.

For school planning purposes, Citywest falls within the Tallaght school planning area. A new 1,000 pupil post-primary school in the Kingswood area of Tallaght opened in September 2016 to serve the needs of the students in the school planning area, which includes the Citywest area.

In addition, among the 13 new schools (4 primary and 9 post-primary) announced to open in 2017 and 2018 to cater for increased demographic needs, is a new post-primary school which will open in 2018 in the Firhouse/Oldbawn school planning area, which is adjacent to the Tallaght area. When fully developed, this school will provide 1,000 pupil places.

As with the other school planning areas nationwide, the demographic data for the Tallaght area is being kept under review by my Department to take account of updated enrolment data and capacity increases in this and adjoining school planning areas.