Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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166. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills for an update on an application made by a school (details supplied) for additional accommodation. [40746/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I 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 extra accommodation at their school.

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 at other schools in the area.

At primary level, this situation generally arises to cater for a school’s accommodation requirements where an additional teaching post has been sanctioned by Teacher Allocation Section, or the requirement for a new class for pupils with special education needs has been identified by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), and all available alternative accommodation within the school is already being used for classroom purposes. The capacity at other schools in the area is also considered as part of the assessment of any accommodation needs.

In general, demographics are falling at primary level and this trend is due to continue. Therefore the Department considers it prudent to maximise the use of existing spare accommodation capacity at primary level in the first instance, before considering any applications for further accommodation needs. This is in line with public spending requirements.

The Department’s Planning and Building Unit is therefore carefully analysing the medium to longer-term requirements for additional accommodation taking account of enrolment projections and the need to make optimum use of existing capacity in schools in the area.

Since 2020, my department has invested in the region of €4.9 billion in our schools throughout the country, involving the completion of over 900 school building projects and with construction currently underway at approximately 300 other projects, which includes 30 new school buildings. These 300 projects currently at construction involve a total State investment of over €1.2bn.

A decision on the application has very recently been communicated to the school in question.