Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-12
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

I thank Deputy Neville for raising this issue. He makes this point quite often and he is right about County Kildare and the population and the need for public services, including education, to keep up with it. The Department tells me that it basically divides up the country into what it calls school planning area levels. It looks at both enrolment and child benefit data. It updates it annually and it is geocoded to the 19,000 small areas across the country. From that, it analyses at a granular level the population of school-going children and the schools they attend. It is not currently using ECCE data. I think there is something interesting about that, considering the number of kids now involved in ECCE is so high. I will certainly engage with the Minister on that. I will also ask her to come back to the Deputy directly in relation to Leixlip and Naas.
The Department tells me it has consulted with St. Corban's National School in Naas and has sanctioned the opening of an additional junior infant class for September in an available classroom to meet a specific demand there. We have also seen the completion of a new 32-classroom co-educational primary school in Naas and the establishment of a new primary school in Leixlip. The Minister, Deputy Naughton, will continue to engage with the Deputy on the issues.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:56+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-12