Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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145. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the extent to which her Department is currently engaged with various school authorities in a school (details supplied) with a view to adding an urgently required stream of school places for the forthcoming academic year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [10181/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that my Department has no current record of receiving an application for additional accommodation from the school in question.

My Department's capital investment programme provides for devolved funding for additional classrooms for existing schools where an immediate enrolment need has been identified.The purpose of the ASA scheme is to ensure that essential mainstream classroom and Special Education Needs (SEN) accommodation is available to cater for pupils enrolled in a primary or post primary schools. It is open to the school authority in question to make an application under my Department's Additional School Accommodation Scheme, information relating to same is available on www.education.ie.

The school received approval in 2019 to change their current status of boys-only to fully vertical co-educational. The question of enrolment in individual schools is the responsibility of the Board of Management on behalf of the school Patron and my Department does not seek to intervene in decisions made by schools in such matters with the exception of new schools established since 2011 to meet demographic demand which are required, in the first instance, to prioritise pupil applications from within the designated school planning area(s) which the school was established to serve.

My Department will shortly be engaging further with patron bodies in advance of identifying specific September 2022 capacity pressure point priorities which will necessitate specific action.