Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 2 December 2025
270. Deputy Mark Wall asked the Minister for Education and Youth the position on additional accommodation for a school (details supplied) in County Kildare; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [67748/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraI can confirm to the Deputy, that my department recently received an application for funding under the Additional School 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 in question is located in the Prosperous-Clane school planning area. The department's projections of primary school place requirements in the Prosperous-Clane SPA indicate that enrolments at primary level peaked in 2019 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.
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 is currently being assessed and once the assessment process is finalised the school authority will be notified of a decision.
