Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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154. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if the ASD classroom at a school (details supplied) will be retrofitted, as requested by the school, before it opens a second ASD class; and if the school will also be allowed to retain a 12th teacher, in order that children with additional needs can be accommodated in a mainstream class. [26037/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I can confirm to the Deputy, that my Department has received an application for capital funding, under the Additional School Accommodation (ASA) scheme, 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.

The consideration of the accommodation requirements for the school in question forms part of the Planning and Building Unit’s overall assessment of its work programme and priorities in the context of available capital funding.

The key factor for prioritisation is to ensure that every child has a school place. In practical terms this means there is a strong emphasis on maximising existing capacity in the school system as much as possible and adding additional capacity as needed. In this regard, the re-purposing of any existing spare classroom accommodation in relevant schools helps to facilitate the early establishment of special classes. The scope to achieve this is more common at primary level where national demographics have peaked and are reducing significantly over the short to medium term (albeit local and regional demographic pressures continue with housing rollout). There are less opportunities for utilising spare classroom accommodation at post-primary level given the continued upward position on overall demographics combined with the need to significantly scale up provision of special classes to an average of 4 special classes in each post-primary school.

The Department’s Modular Accommodation Programme is an important mechanism for facilitating accelerated delivery of necessary additional capacity – including in relation to special classes. However, as part of maximising existing capacity and managing within budgetary parameters this is targeted at schools where there is no existing capacity in the general area to facilitate the establishment of urgently required special classes.

The Department works closely with the NCSE to ensure there is good coordination and alignment so that existing capacity is maximised as much as possible in relation to the establishment of new special classes.

Planning for school place requirements in special classes and special schools for the coming 2024/25 school year is now largely concluded with just a few remaining special classes to be approved.

Project Manager supports are being used to ensure that any necessary accommodation works are being done as quickly as possible and in a manner that eases some of the workload for the individual schools.

A Project manager has been appointed to the school in question and it is expected that a site visit will be carried out soon.

I can assure the Deputy that the provision of required school places, including for children with special educational needs, is a priority for my Department and my officials are working to ensure that there is sufficient provision to meet the school place needs in the school in question and the wider School Planning Area for future years.

In relation to the query on the retention of 12^th teacher, the key factor for determining the level of staffing resources provided at individual school level is the staffing schedule for the relevant school year and pupil enrolments on the previous 30 September. The staffing process contains an appeals mechanism for schools to submit a staffing appeal under certain criteria to an independent Primary Staffing Appeals Board. The appeal submitted by the school referred to by the Deputy has been deemed ineligible by the Appeals Board, as the grounds of the appeal did not meet the appeal criteria published in Circular 0011/2024. The Appeals Board operates independently of the Department and its decision is final.