Cathal Crowe
Question:946. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Minister for Education the status of an application by a school (details supplied) for additional accommodation. [20953/22]
View answerTuesday, 26 April 2022
Questions (946)
Written answers
I can confirm that my Department is in receipt of an Additional School Accommodation (ASA) application form from the school referred to by the Deputy.
The purpose of the ASA scheme is to ensure that essential mainstream classroom and Special Education Needs (SEN) accommodation is available to cater for pupils enrolled each year, where the need cannot be met by the school’s existing accommodation.
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.
Officials from my Department have engaged with the school authority regarding required information. Once this has been received and the assessment completed, a decision will be conveyed directly to the school authority.