Colm Burke (Cork North-Central, Fine Gael)
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562. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the status of a school’s application under the additional accommodation scheme; when a decision will be taken whether to progress the application; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [62216/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I can confirm that my department is in receipt of an application for funding under the Additional Schools Accommodation (ASA) scheme from the school 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 by available accommodation at other schools in the area.

The school's application is for the replacement of a small classroom. I can confirm to the Deputy that a site visit to the school was undertaken in April 2025 and the resulting technical report confirmed that the school site is at maximum capacity with no scope for further expansion.

The school is located in the Buttevant school planning area. The department's projections of primary school place requirements in the Buttevant SPA indicate that enrolments at primary level peaked in 2023 and are decreasing year on year.

Given the general downward direction of overall enrolments in the area the department's focus for the assessment of such additional accommodation applications will be as follows:

• Analyse the extent to which enrolments at this school and neighbouring schools are serving the local area in the first instance. This will identify if some of the pressures on local capacity are arising from the enrolment of pupils from outside the local area where there may be other school provision opportunities available to them.
• In assessing accommodation capacity at this school and neighbouring schools, an assessment will need to be made on how best to utilise existing capacity in the context of both mainstream and SEN requirements in the local area.