Colm Burke (Cork North-Central, Fine Gael)
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175. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the funding mechanism his Department has in place to assist schools that require to purchase land in order to create a safe parking space for school drop-offs and pick-ups; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [66451/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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My Department does not provide funding for site extensions where the original site is not in state ownership. In this case it is a matter for the Board of Management or the Patron to purchase any site extension required. There are legal difficulties associated with dual ownership of different parts of a school site. In that regard, it is not possible for the Department to purchase part of a school site and leave the remainder in the ownership of the Patron.

The purpose of my department's Additional Schools' Accommodation 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 Climate Action Summer Works Scheme (CASWS) provides for funding to be devolved to individual school authorities to undertake small-scale building works which, ideally, can be carried out during the summer months or at other times that avoid disrupting the operation of the school. The CASWS operates on a multi-annual basis for a number of categories which includes external environment projects to facilitate improvement works to the existing external school areas. The new CASWS was open to all schools to apply for funding and closed for applications on the 30th of June 2025. In the past week 297 projects were approved under the new CASWS. It is anticipated that the next tranche of approvals will be announced in the latter half of 2026.