The general process of assessing and planning for the need for additional provision at primary or post-primary level in any given area entails consideration of all relevant factors, including enrolment and demographic trends, housing and other developments and the capacity of existing schools to meet the demand for places. My Department is included among the prescribed authorities to whom local authorities are statutorily obliged to send draft development plans or proposed variations to development plans for comment. As a matter of course, meetings are arranged with local authorities to establish the location, scale and pace of any major proposed developments and their possible implications for school provision.
Officials in the school planning section of my Department are strengthening contacts with local authorities to enable informed decisions to be made in planning future educational provision. For example, a specific forum, the Dublin school planning committee, chaired by officials of my Department, interacts with the Dublin local authorities. The forum comprises representatives of the local authorities in Dublin and those of the patron bodies of primary schools. It works proactively to monitor demographic changes and their likely impact. Over and above this, as the Deputy will be aware, a new area based approach to school planning is being pursued by my Department. This involves a public consultation process and published area development plans which form a blueprint for school development in an area in a ten-year period. All of these measures, taken in combination, will enable us to build on the progress made to date and plan and respond ever more effectively to emerging need.