Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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708. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to sanction the provision of extra accommodation for the two special ASD classrooms for a school (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [12049/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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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 authority in question for modular accommodation for 2 special education classrooms.

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.

Since 2020, the department has invested over €5.8 billion in our schools throughout the country, involving the completion of over 1,300 school building projects. Between projects currently under construction and projects moving to construction in this latest phase, investments by the Department of Education are adding over 600,000 square metres of new and modernised capacity to our school estate.

This is a record level of investment in school buildings. It will expand the number of school places, significantly increase provision for special education and upgrade and modernise our school infrastructure. The impact of this will be felt in communities right around the country.

The Programme for Government recognises the importance of strong capital investment in the school building programme and supporting this with enhanced allocations through the NDP process.

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.

A brief for modular accommodation of 2 special education classrooms was agreed by the school and the Department has arranged for the appointment of a project manager under the under the Project Manager Framework.

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.

I can confirm that a site visit will take place in the coming weeks by Project Managers to the school in question to determine project viability.

Officials in my Department remain available to the school authority should they have any further queries.