FIVE NEW GAELSCOILEANNA are to be opened in Dublin over the next three years. 

The five new schools will serve areas of growing populations where there is no existing Irish-medium primary school or where there is more than one new school to be established by 2022. 

Minister for Education Joe McHugh made the decision following an analysis of the availability of gaelscoileanna in a number of areas of Greater Dublin. 

New gaelscoileanna will open next year in Donabate and in the Newcastle/Rathcoole/Saggart area, according to the Department of Education. 

Two more will open in the Donaghmede/Howth/Dublin 13 and the Dublin 2/4 areas in 2021. 

The last of the five new gaelscoileanna will open in the Sallynoggin/Killiney/Cherrywood area either next year or in 2022.

The Minister took the decision to designate the language of these five schools after amending criteria which are considered in determining the ethos and language of instruction of new primary schools as part of the patronage process for new schools.

Under the changes, if there is no existing Irish-medium provision in a school planning area, and a new primary school is being established to meet demographic demand, the new school will be designated as a gaelscoil.

Furthermore, when a number of new primary schools are due to be established in the same school planning area during the period of 2019 to 2022, at least one of these schools in the area must be a gaelscoil.

This will happen “unless there are particular local circumstances where this would not be appropriate”, the Department said. 

“I want to help address the imbalance in the availability of Irish-medium education, so I have changed the criteria as part of patronage processes that will allow some schools to be designated as gaelscoileanna,” McHugh said.

“This will provide more choice for parents and children and it will give them better certainty about the availability of Irish medium education for their children,” he said. 

In total, 13 new primary schools are to be established between 2020 and 2022.