Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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212. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to provide an urgently needed new second level school in the north fringe, Dublin city council and south fringe, Fingal county council districts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39972/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The areas to which the Deputy refers takes in a number of School Planning Areas, including Portmarnock and Donaghmede-Howth.  These defined school planning areas facilitate the orderly planning of school provision and accommodation needs. The Department uses a Geographical Information System (GIS) to identify where the pressure for school places will arise. The GIS uses data from the Central Statistics Office, Ordnance Survey Ireland and the Department of Social Protection, in addition to the Department’s own databases.  With this information, the Department carries out nationwide demographic analyses at primary and post primary level to determine where additional school accommodation is needed.

On foot of the last nationwide demographic analyses, the establishment of four new primary schools and nine new post-primary schools to open in 2017 and 2018 was announced.  One of the new 1,000-pupil post-primary schools will serve the Swords school planning area and one will serve the Malahide and Portmarnock school planning areas, which are adjacent to the school planning areas which cross the Dublin Bay North area and will provide regional solutions.  As part of this announcement, it was also stated that a range of areas nationwide are experiencing increased demographic pressure and will be kept under ongoing review by the Department and that new schools may be necessary in the years after 2018 at post-primary level. North-West Dublin City and the Dublin 13 and Dublin 17 areas are included in this ongoing review.