As the Deputy will be aware, for school planning purposes, 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.
More than €310 million has been invested in school infrastructure in County Kildare since 2020 alone, reflecting a strong focus on alignment of school place availability with the significant residential development across the county. This investment includes recently completed new school buildings in Maynooth and Naas. Additionally, further new school buildings and extensions are at construction or planned, including in Prosperous, Kilcock, Maynooth, Celbridge, Leixlip, Naas and Clane.
At a national level, Ireland has been experiencing growth in overall post primary enrolments and this is projected to continue in many parts of the country for the next number of years before beginning to decline. However, first year enrolments nationally are expected to have peaked in the 2023/24 school year and are now beginning to decline. Across North Kildare there are almost 250 more first year places available for the 2025/26 school year than sixth class children. At primary level, there is generally good capacity across the country, although there are some areas under continuing demographic pressures.
Nevertheless, the Department has been putting in place a number of measures to support parents and post-primary schools, with a view to helping the admissions process for 2025/26 run as smoothly as possible.
Firstly, the Department has written to all parents and guardians of children in sixth class with advice and guidance regarding the admissions process for post-primary for the 2025/26 school year. This letter advised parents to apply to multiple schools in areas where there is high demand and requested parents to take steps to avoid holding multiple places.
Secondly, the Department has improved the central Post-Primary On-line Database IT system that schools use to register student enrolments. This is an important improvement and is available to assist schools to manage the enrolment process and provide real-time notification to schools where a new student has accepted a school place in more than one school. This will help identify duplicate enrolments at a very early stage.
Furthermore, the successful data-sharing arrangements that were implemented for the 2024/25 admissions process in areas of enrolment pressure, including Celbridge will be put in place again for the 2025/26 process. It is expected that, as in previous years, the data sharing will provide confidence that there is sufficient school place availability in the majority of areas. However, if a shortfall of places is identified in an area, the Department will work with schools to put the necessary solutions in place.
St Patrick's National School, St Raphael's Special School and Celbridge Community School has been approved for a large-scale project on a greenfield site to enter the Department’s pipeline of new school buildings. This project is devolved to the National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) for delivery as part of a bundled school building programmes. The schools will be delivered as part of a campus development at Donaghcumper, Celbridge.
The NDFA have appointed a Design Team and the Department is awaiting the submission of the initial architectural designs. At this early stage and particularly in advance of the required statutory approvals, it is not possible to provide a timeline for completion of the project. The NDFA have and will continue to engage directly with the school authorities to keep them informed of progress.
I want to assure the Deputy that my Department will continue to work to ensure a school place for every child across Co. Kildare, including Celbridge School Planning Area.
