Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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477. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills her plans to assist with the shrinking play area at a school (details supplied) due to extensions and a growing school population in the area; if she will record the current situation regarding inadequate parking space at the school and the ongoing safety issues presenting due to same; if she will review this case urgently; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14532/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I can confirm to the Deputy that my Department received correspondence from the school in question regarding retrospective funding for the play area at the school. Officials in my Department will consider the correspondence received and will contact the school authorities directly.

The Board of Management is responsible for the management of a school on behalf of the patron(s). Individual school authorities are responsible for ensuring the safety and welfare of children and others in their care, including traffic management measures within school property.

The issue of road safety measures outside the vested site areas of schools on public roads, such as road signage, traffic calming measures etc., is a matter, for the relevant Local Authority. Local Authorities have the power to decide on road safety measures outside schools to ensure that measures are in place to protect the safety of local school children.

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 part of it’s planning for 2024 and beyond, Department officials are working on the arrangements for the next phases of the summer works programme. It is envisaged at this stage that, a new Multi-Annual Summer Works Scheme (SWS) with a focus on climate action and energy conservation. Schools will be notified of the details of the SWS in due course.

The purpose of the SWS is to devolve funding to individual school authorities to undertake small-scale building works which, ideally, can be carried out during the summer months or at other times that avoid disrupting the operation of the school. The SWS operates on a multi-annual basis and was last opened for applications in 2019. It will be open to the school in question to apply for funding under the Summer Works Scheme.

Since 2020 my Department has invested in the region of €4.3 billion in our schools throughout the country, including the completion of over 750 school building projects with construction currently underway at approximately 300 other projects, which includes 34 new school buildings.

School building projects at construction involve an overall State investment of over €1.2 billion. We also have a large modular accommodation programme delivering urgently needed school places.

This is a record level of investment in our schools and highlights the Government’s very strong track record of delivery in providing additional capacity and modern facilities for our school communities.