Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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518. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a decision on an application by a school (details supplied) could be reviewed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [16965/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that my Department is in receipt of an application for additional school accommodation (ASA) from the school authority in question.

Officials from my Department have been engaging with the school authority regarding September 2023 requirements as a priority, with a view to providing the required accommodation for the 2023/24 school year.  The Department is also liaising with the school authority regarding the schools' long term needs.

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 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 a new SEN class has been sanctioned by the NCSE, and all available alternative accommodation within the school is already being used for classroom purposes.