School Enrolments
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-30
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Emer Higgins (FG), Dublin Mid-West

I thank the Deputy for outlining the steps he has taken and the positive and proactive engagement he has had with the Minister for Education and Youth and departmental officials and the collaborative way in which he has worked with the school community. That matters and doing that work matters. It is hard and tough work, but as the Deputy can see it gets results. It has got results in this instance.
The message here is very simple. The Government has listened, engaged and delivered. A new junior infant class has now been approved for Scoil Mhuire. Critically, that class will be ready for September of this year. The Deputy mentioned other schools in similar situations. The annual enrolment process for new junior infants at primary level and new first years at post-primary level is a large-scale operation. It is transacted with close to 4,000 schools across the country involving 140,000 pupils. In order to plan for school places and need, the Department divides the country into 314 school planning areas and utilises a geographical information system to anticipate school place demand. Information from a range of sources, including child benefit data, school enrolment data and data on residential development activities is used for this purpose. In addition, the Project Ireland 2040 population and housing targets inform the Department's projection of school place requirements.
The Deputy mentioned constituents in Celbridge and other areas. It is important that they are aware that the Department is looking at this from a holistic perspective and is making sure that the Department is able to provide classes, classrooms and schools where demand exists. Scoil Mhuire and the Green Lane schools very clearly demonstrated that the demand is there, and the Department responded accordingly.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-30