Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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235. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to outline the rationale for housing the Educate Together National School in Fermoy, County Cork, in the basement of a shared building which is wholly inadequate for the school's size and needs and provides no space for growth or development of this school service into the future; if this meets the standards for a positive school environment; and if there are plans to address concerns that the location is detrimental to the educational success of the school. [23933/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Fermoy was one of the areas surveyed in 2012/13 under the patronage divesting process where there was sufficient parental demand supporting changes in school patronage (the areas surveyed were areas where demographics were not growing and therefore it was unlikely that a new multidenominational school would be established for demographic reasons).

The policy on patronage divesting is to use existing educational infrastructure to facilitate provision of diversity in areas where there is no demographic imperative to establish new schools. The reason for this is that, of necessity, the focus of the schools capital programme is on the provision of additional school places at both primary and post-primary levels to ensure that every pupil can access a school place.

As part of the process of identifying a suitable accommodation solution which would facilitate the establishment of the school, my Department liaised with Cork Education and Training Board. In order to facilitate the establishment of the new school, the ETB agreed to the co-location of the Educate Together school at the former Technical School in Fermoy, together with some of the ETB’s Further Education and Training services.

Prior to the establishment of the new school in 2018 under the patronage divesting process, my Department and Educate Together as school patron agreed that given the accommodation available at the property and the need for the ETB to accommodate some Further Education and Training services from the property, the school would be established as a four-classroom school and that the school will maintain this configuration in the accommodation in the former Technical School unless an existing school building is freed up for use in the area. As part of this engagement, my Department outlined to the school patron the importance of enrolments being managed within the available accommodation in a sustainable way and that this would be communicated to the school Board of Management so that parents could be fully informed and in order to manage expectations.

The role of my Department is to ensure that all schools in an area can, between them, cater to school place requirements in that area. The broader position in the Fermoy School Planning Area is that demographics at primary level are declining and will steadily decrease for the foreseeable future.

The school has been advised to direct any queries that it has regarding the divesting agreement to its patron. My Department has been engaging with the school patron, Educate Together, in respect of the current and future needs of the school. A technical visit by the Department is planned and will be undertaken shortly.