Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 January 2024
316. Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn asked the Minister for Education further to Parliamentary Question No. 590 of 17 January 2024, if she will urgently review the decision by her Department not to include a school (details supplied) in the school capital buildings programme. [3098/24]
View answerThe department is required to manage the overall school building programme so that we target and prioritise areas that are under greatest pressure for additional school places. This reflects the department’s fundamental objective of ensuring the availability of a school place for every child.
As outlined in Parliamentary Question No. 590 of 17 January 2024, the main focus of the department’s capital funding over the last decade and for the coming period is on provision of critical additional capacity to cater for increasing demographics and children with special education needs.
The overall position with regard to potential modernisation and replacement of existing school infrastructure will be kept under review as capital funding allocations for future years are clarified.
Should a school authority consider that it does not have sufficient capacity, in terms of mainstream teaching accommodation and special education classrooms, it is open to them to apply for accommodation under the Additional School Accommodation Scheme (ASA), details of which are available on my department's website www.education.ie. The purpose of the ASA scheme is to ensure that essential classroom accommodation is available to cater for pupils enrolled each year and where the need cannot be met by the school’s existing accommodation.
The school in question has been approved a building project under my Department’s ASA scheme that would provide for 2 mainstream classrooms and 2 special education tuition rooms. This project is currently at stage 3 with our delivery team.
In addition further funding was approved under the ASA scheme in 2022 for modular accommodation to provide 1 mainstream classroom and 2 special education tuition rooms. In early 2023, the brief for the school was reviewed and increased to provide 1 Special Education classroom in addition to 1 mainstream classroom and 2 Special education tuition rooms.
As the Deputy will be aware, a devolved Minor Works Grant is also payable to schools. This grant provides good flexibility at local school level to make improvements to the physical infrastructure of school buildings and it is open to schools to prioritise the works they wish to undertake within the terms of the scheme.
The Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform will be engaging with Departments on NDP allocations for the period 2026 to 2028 over the coming months, with allocation decisions expected during the first half of 2024.
