Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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122. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the position regarding an application for additional accommodation at a school (details supplied) [31815/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I can confirm to the Deputy that my Department received an application for significant capital funding from the school in question to provide additional school accommodation.

As the Deputy will be aware, my Department’s current priority is focused on the provision of essential classroom accommodation to ensure that every child will have access to a physical school place and where an additional teacher is being appointed. The school in question is a two teacher school with a current enrolment of 42. This enrolment level does not warrant the appointment of an additional teacher and consequently, my Department advised the school that it is not therefore in a position to provide grant aid for the additional accommodation sought.

The school subsequently wrote to my Department advising that it expects enrolments to increase in the coming years. My Department responded to the school's correspondence stating that should enrolments increase in the coming years to warrant the appointment of an additional teacher, that it was open to the school to submit an application for consideration at that point.