Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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558.To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the status of an additional accommodation scheme application lodged by a school (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter.[34467/24]

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 the Additional School Accommodation (ASA) scheme, from the school in question.

The purpose of the ASA scheme is to ensure that essential mainstream classroom and accommodation for students with special educational needs is available to cater for pupils enrolled each year, where the need cannot be met by the school’s existing accommodation or at other schools in the area.

The main focus of resources over the last decade and for the coming period is on provision of additional capacity to cater for increasing demographics. As a result, the current priority under the Additional Accommodation scheme is the provision of essential classroom accommodation to meet demographic demand or where an additional post is being appointed.

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 National Council for Special Education (NCSE), and all available alternative accommodation within the school is already being used for classroom purposes.

The Department has a significant modular accommodation programme in place to assist schools in the provision of additional capacity, including in respect of facilitating the establishment of special classes.

This programme involves the use of Project Management supports which is designed to enable the accommodation to be provided as quickly as possible and help ease the administrative workload for school authorities in relation to the management and delivery of projects.

The use of the Department’s Modular Accommodation Framework also assists in ensuring lead in periods for procurement of modular accommodation are minimised to the greatest extent possible. To date, this has worked very well in the education sector and has seen delivery of large scale, high quality modular accommodation to meet the needs of children, particularly those with special educational needs.

A Project Manager has been appointed to progress a proposed brief of accommodation for this school. Following completion of the viability report, and considering the complexities involved with the school site, the Department requested Project Managers to explore a number of options to meet the needs of the school. The report is now being considered.

I can only seek to assure you that we will advance this matter as quickly as possible and officials in my Department will be in touch with the school in the coming weeks.