Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 13 January 2026
1235. Deputy Michael Murphy asked the Minister for Education and Youth if her attention has been drawn to the severe accommodation pressures currently facing a primary school (details supplied), which has expanded from a two-teacher to a three-teacher school. [1771/26]
View answerI can confirm to the Deputy, that the school in question, has submitted an application for capital funding, under my department's Additional Schools' Accommodation (ASA) Scheme for mainstream accommodation.
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 and at other schools in the area.
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.
Government departments are currently in the process of publishing their sectoral NDP Implementation Plans. The sectoral plan for the Education and Youth sector will be published shortly and the first tranche of projects to progress to construction will be published in January 2026. This NDP Implementation 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.
I can advise the Deputy that the school's application is currently under assessment. Given the general downward direction of overall enrolments in the area in question 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.
The above sets the parameters for the department’s decision-making processes and this will, where necessary, involve engagement with school patrons and relevant individual schools as appropriate.
The application for this school is being considered in this context and the school authority will be contacted as soon as a decision is made.
