Today I want to highlight the issue of school spaces, or the lack thereof, and the desperate need for joined-up thinking between Departments to ensure early indicators are there, so we know where we will have issues. More conversations are needed between the Department of Education and Youth and the Department of Social Protection, potentially, around the number of ECCE applicants we are seeing in local areas, which I do not believe is taking place. Otherwise we need to look at the census data from year to year to see who is coming on stream. Ultimately, these children are applying for schools but the schools do not know how many kids are coming in and we are left short of spaces. Currently in Leixlip the population is continuing to rise and there are over 40 children still without primary school places. In Naas all the schools have come together - the eight primary schools - and have said they do not have spaces. They are all making applications at this stage to the Department but, ultimately, this information should be known ahead of time in the local areas. If we have that data, we need to use it. This is the key point I want to make. We are not forward planning well enough. We are putting in the houses, as we said earlier, but at the same time in the likes of Leixlip, Maynooth and Celbridge, we are not seeing planning ahead.

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