Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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252. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when a decision will be made on an application by a school (details supplied) for a major expansion of the school, including the replacement of a substandard building and other facilities, in view of the overcrowding in the school and the existing substandard accommodation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [49321/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I can confirm to the Deputy that my Department is in receipt of an application for capital funding under the Additional School Accommodation (ASA) scheme from the school authority in question.

Officials in my Department have engaged with the school authority and further information is to be submitted by the school authority. Once this is received, the application will be assessed and the school authority will be contacted directly with a decision.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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253. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if it is intended to provide funding under the devolved scheme to a school (details supplied) to significantly upgrade the present substandard buildings which are totally inadequate for the increasing number of pupils in the school and is a low-cost project; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [49327/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I can confirm to the Deputy, that the school in question submitted an application under my Department's Additional School Accommodation (ASA) Scheme.

This application was assessed by my officials and it was determined that the school had sufficient accommodation to cater for its current cohort of staff and pupils. The school authorities were informed of this decision directly.

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.

As the Deputy will be aware, the National Development Plan 2021-2030 provides capital funding of over €4.4bn for investment in school infrastructure during the period 2021 to 2025. My Department’s priority in recent years has been providing additional capacity to provide the required school places and this continues to be the case.

However, under the NDP allocation for the School Education sector there will be provision for a number of key initiatives, including a strengthened focus on refurbishment and modernisation of existing school stock as part of underpinning the transition of the school system to an era of Net Zero carbon by 2050.

My Department and the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications have established a jointly funded pathfinder programme with the SEAI, testing and demonstrating energy efficiency and decarbonisation retrofit approaches. This Pathfinder programme is paving the way for, and informing, a much larger national programme for the energy retrofit of schools built prior to 2008 as included in the National Development Plan.