Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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960. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the status of an application for additional school accommodation made by a school in County Clare (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46505/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I can confirm to the Deputy, that my department has received an application, under the Additional Schools Accommodation (ASA) Scheme, from the school authority in question.

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

The application in question was assessed by my officials and a provisional offer was issued to the school authority for the following accommodation: traditional build of one Mainstream classroom and one Special education tuition room. The school subsequently replied to the offer of accommodation requesting consideration be given to other items of accommodation that they had applied for within their application.

Since 2020, my department has invested over €6 billion in our schools throughout the country under the National Development Plan, involving the completion of over 1,400 school building projects. Government support for this investment, including by way of supplementary capital funding, has delivered real benefits for school communities. Supplementary capital funding of €210 million approved by Government has brought the total capital allocation for 2025 for my department to €1.6 billion.

I wish to advise the Deputy that in July the Government announced a capital allocation of €7.55 billion for the Department of Education and Youth for the period 2026-2030 under the National Development Plan. As part of this NDP allocation my department will place a strong emphasis on provision for children with special educational needs, with a particular focus on meeting annual school place needs. In relation to project rollout for Large-Scale projects and Additional School Accommodation scheme projects, the approach will be to continue to maximise the capacity of the existing school estate as much as possible in the first instance and provide necessary additional capacity through targeted and prioritised project rollout over the course of 2026 to 2030 period to meet the most urgent and prioritised needs.

My department is now preparing an NDP implementation plan which is due for publication later in the Autumn. This plan will optimise outputs from the NDP allocations, with a strong focus on maximising existing school capacity, progressing priority projects where local capacity across schools in the area is insufficient, and ensuring delivery that is affordable, offers value for money, and meets functional needs.

The application from Scoil Mhichil will be considered in this context and the school authorities will be contacted with a decision as soon as possible.