Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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351. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her attention has been drawn to a shortage of primary school places in Dunshaughlin for September 2025 and that her Department has been notified of at least one patron body of their willingness to facilitate additional students if they have the teaching resources and physical space to do so; her plans to ensure additional capacity in Dunshaughlin for September 2025; the timeline for same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13479/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I can assure the Deputy that the provision of school places to meet the needs of children and young people at primary and post primary level, including children and young people with special educational needs is an absolute priority for my department.

As the Deputy may be aware, in order to plan for school place needs, my Department divides the country into 314 school planning areas and utilises a Geographical Information System to anticipate school place demand. Information from a range of sources, including Child Benefit data, school enrolment data and information on residential development activity is used for this purpose. Additionally, Project Ireland 2040 population and housing targets inform my Department's projections of school place requirements.

While my Department is aware of enrolment pressures and demand for additional school places in some areas including Dunshaughlin at primary level, it is important to note that pressures can be driven by duplications of applications, applications from outside an area, and school of choice factors. The department has taken a number of steps to help ensure the admissions process for 2025/26 runs smoothly, including improvements to the Post Primary Online Database student registration system to help identify students that have accepted multiple places, writing to parents of sixth class children with advice on the admissions process, and strengthening the data-sharing arrangements with schools in areas of enrolment pressure.

Notwithstanding the above, in some areas demographic pressures and other factors are driving a requirement for additional school places and Dunshaughlin is one such area which has experienced significant growth in population in recent years. The requirement for increased school capacity in Dunshaughlin was recognised with the establishment of a new Community National School in 2020. This project will provide an 8 Mainstream Classroom and 2 Special education classroom school. This project is currently at procurement stage. In addition, there are a number of extension projects active for St Seachnalls National School, Culmullen Natonal School and Scoil na Rithe. Where required, the provision of additional school places can be facilitated by a range of strategies, some of which may involve additional accommodation but also optimising use of existing capacity.

My Department works closely with all school patrons and is currently finalising plans with school authorities to increase the number of Junior Infant places in the Dunshaughlin School Planning area for September 2025. This is in order to ensure every child in the area has a school place next September.