School Accommodation
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-13
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Hildegarde Naughton (FG), Galway West

I thank Deputy McGreehan for her question. It gives me pleasure to have the opportunity to provide an update to the House on the current position in relation to accommodation at Monksland National School in County Louth. The school is a co-educational Catholic school under the patronage of the Archbishop of Armagh. It has an enrolment in 2025-2026 of 139 pupils, which includes pupils in the two special education classes that were established at the school in 2022. In line with the national decline in primary demographics, the enrolment at the school had decreased from 151 in 2023. At a national level, primary school enrolments are projected to decline by about 100,000 over a ten-year period.
In 2022, the school submitted an application for additional accommodation at Monksland National School. On foot of this application, modular accommodation comprising two special educational needs classrooms and one special educational tuition classroom was delivered in April of 2024. That is currently in place and operational. Modular accommodation provides a high-quality, modern learning environment that is both functional and adaptable, and it offers a well-designed comfortable space that effectively meets the school's current needs while allowing flexibility for future requirements. In July of last year, the Government announced a capital allocation of €7.55 billion for the Department of Education and Youth for the period 2026 to 2030 under the national development plan. As part of this NDP allocation, the Department will place a strong emphasis on provision for children with special educational needs, with a particular focus on meeting annual school place needs.
In relation to project roll-out for large-scale projects and additional school accommodation scheme projects, the approach will be to continue to maximise the capacity of the existing school estate as much as possible in the first instance and provide necessary additional capacity through targeted and prioritised project roll-out over the course of 2026 to 2030 to meet the most urgent and prioritised needs. The sectoral plan for the education and youth sector will be published shortly. The first tranche of projects to progress to construction will be published at that time. This NDP implementation plan will optimise outputs from the NDP allocations with 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. All existing school building projects and applications for accommodation will be considered in this context, with a particular focus on ensuring existing capacity is maximised. My Department has recently engaged with the Deputy's school, I understand, and will continue to work with the school to ensure that the current and the future school place needs are addressed.

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Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-13