Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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411. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Parliamentary Question No. 514 of 18 November 2025, if she will consider establishing additional accommodation measures for primary schools in Kildare town, to ensure that all children can receive an education in their local area; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [65867/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Primary school enrolments at national level have been in decline for quite a number of years. While there are continued pressures in some areas where there is high demand with continued population growth and housing development driving the need for additional school places, previous capacity data returned by Kildare schools highlighted that 3 out of 4 primary schools in the school planning area had capacity in Junior infants and capacity across other class groups.

The annual enrolment process for new Junior Infants at primary and new First Years at post-primary is a very large-scale operation that is transacted at close to 4,000 schools across the country, involving some 140,000 pupils. In this context, it is important to note that enrolment pressures can be driven by factors other than demographic pressure such as duplications of applications, applications from outside an area, and school of choice factors. My department will continue to monitor all 314 school planning areas including Kildare in order to ensure schools between them in any area have sufficient capacity and that all children have a school place each September.

The status of all school building projects is publicly available and regularly updated on my Department’s website at www.gov.ie, reflecting progress through the various stages of capital appraisal, site acquisition.

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 1,300 school building projects.

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. It is planned that circa 80 school building projects will progress to construction across 2026 and 2027 as part of a 2-year rolling programme.

All Government departments are expected to publish their sectoral NDP Implementation Plans in November. My department’s 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.