453. Deputy James O'Connor asked the Minister for Education and Youth the supports her Department will provide to a primary school (details supplied) considering the large increase incoming for the junior infants in September 2026 and lack of accommodation available on site; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33230/26]

I wish to advise the Deputy that my department is in receipt of an application for additional school accommodation (ASA) from the school authority in question. The application relates to interim accommodation pending delivery of the school's traditional build of 1 Mainstream classroom and 2 Special education classrooms.

The department's main responsibility is to ensure that schools in an area can, between them, cater for all pupils seeking school places in the area. The availability of places is a matter for each individual school in the context of their admissions legislation.

The Department’s National Development Plan (NDP) has a strong focus on maximising existing school capacity, progressing priority projects where local capacity across schools in the area is insufficient, and ensuring delivery that is affordable, offers value for money, and meets functional needs.

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.

In line with the recently published primary staffing schedule, it is important from a school accommodation perspective that admission processes operated by individual primary schools are focused on meeting local needs and do not result in a requirement for additional classroom accommodation unless the Department’s Planning & Building Unit considers that it is necessary to meet demographic or special class requirements in that local area.

The application is being considered in the above context and a decision will issue to the school authority in the coming days.