Mr. Brian Power:

I wish to reassure the Chair on the private school issue. It is an issue we tackled ourselves again this year in terms of trying to address the system and the glitches that can come. We are very much aware of the skewing effect that a private school can have on an area. We have introduced a new element into the system whereby we factor out the places in private schools that are not taken up by local students from within the school planning area. The Chairman is right that this will have an impact on areas like Newbridge. It also has an enormous impact in some of the south Dublin school planning areas where almost all the schools are private. We have now factored that in for the first time. I am glad to say that hopefully we should make it more accurate overall.