Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the opportunity to take Deputy O'Sullivan's slot. I thank the witnesses for coming before us. It is interesting to hear their views and opinions. While they differ slightly, addressing the balance of rights within a community and the ability of every child to have an opportunity to go to school in his or her community is uppermost.

Some 20% of schools have a problem with oversubscription. The inference may be taken from the Bill tabled by my colleague, Deputy Ó Ríordáin, that this is an elitist issue and impacts on fee-paying schools. However, my experience as a public representative, and having been a teacher, is that oversubscription was not an issue in fee-paying schools in terms of parents wishing to send their children to the schools they went to. Rather, it was quite the opposite. There are fee-paying schools in my area.

Without a shadow of a doubt, we have to address the situation whereby parents make a number of applications to a number of schools and, in some cases, accept all of the offers and decide at the last minute which school to go to. That leads to huge problems, in particular in areas where the Department of Education is trying to define the need for a new school. In south Kildare it was hard to crunch the numbers. I contacted sixth class children in primary schools to try to determine how many children were leaving primary school and how many were on waiting lists for different secondary schools.

The one-year timeframe is not sufficient, a point that was well made in the submission. Applications need to be made from fifth class onwards.

There has to be some type of central enrolment policy, which most primary schools within catchment areas already have. That is key. In some cases, principals get together informally. The Department should take a lead on this. It is doing that in south Kildare at the moment, in particular in the areas I outlined and because there is an agreement for a new school. I would be interested in hearing the views of the witnesses as to how that could work. It is crucial for the future.

The balance of rights has been mentioned. That is important in terms of solidarity in a community. As new families, be they new Irish or from different parts of Ireland, move to towns they need to be able to become part of a school community. We cannot have a situation where they are, in effect, not allowed to become part of the community. That is the key issue.

The timeline is important in terms of applications for schools. In Newbridge, there are ninth and tenth round offers being made right into August, sometimes two weeks before school is due to start. That is difficult for parents and students, in particular. I would like to hear the views of the witnesses on that.