Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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500. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the status of a school extension and funding approval for a school (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18276/22]

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.

The purpose of my Department’s Additional School Accommodation (or ASA) scheme is to ensure that essential mainstream classroom accommodation and accommodation for pupils with special education needs is available to cater for pupils enrolled each year, where the need cannot be met by the school’s existing accommodation.

At primary level, this situation generally arises to cater for a school’s accommodation requirements where an additional teaching post has been sanctioned by Teacher Allocation Section, or the requirement for a new class for pupils with special education needs has been identified by the NCSE, and all available alternative accommodation within the school is already being used for classroom purposes.

The main focus of resources over the last decade and for the coming period is on provision of additional capacity to cater for increasing demographics particularly at post-primary level and for special education needs provision. The Deputy will appreciate that the immediate priority of my Department is providing new and replacement school places each year, to ensure that every child has a school place.

However, the latter stage of the National Development Plan will see an increasing focus on the upgrade and refurbishment of the existing school stock and under which the ancillary accommodation needs of primary schools will also be considered. My Department has contacted the school in question in this context.