John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

208. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the plans for a new school building (details supplied). [40109/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I wish to confirm to the Deputy, that an application for major capital funding has been received from the schools in question.

Applications from schools for major capital works must be considered in the context of the demographic challenge facing the education system in the coming years. The priority of the Department continues to be the provision of required additional school places to meet demographic requirements as well as for children with special educational needs.

The Department is required to manage the allocated capital funding across all schools in the country.

The Department’s approach is to maximise the usage of existing capacity in the school estate and, in tandem with this, to manage the progression of the existing pipeline of projects within available budgets and in line with the Government’s Infrastructure Guidelines. This allows the Department to keep a strong focus on the provision of additional capacity to cater for demographics, new housing developments and the rollout of additional special classes for children with additional needs. This approach reflects the Department’s fundamental objective of ensuring the availability of a school place for every child.

On this premise, the schools’ application was considered under the Additional School Accommodation Scheme (ASA).

The purpose of the 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 or at other schools in the area.

The potential to add accommodation to St. Pius X Boys’ National School was considered in detail by the Department’s Professional and Technical Section. My Department is considering the optimum way forward for the school in question following the report on the school's accommodation and school site. I can only seek to assure the Deputy that we will advance this matter as quickly as possible and that we are very conscious that where additional accommodation is required, a significant lead-in time is necessary for a variety of reasons.