Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for appearing before the committee. I also thank Deputy Ó Ríordáin for his work on the legislation. There is a rather unusual provision in the legislation. Section 62(7)(e) lists the categorisations or issues a school is not entitled to take into account when admitting a child into school. Section 62(7)(e)(vi) states: "a student’s connection to the school by virtue of a member of his or her family attending or having previously attended the school". It is surprising that section 62(10) seems to contradict that. It is an unusual form of legislative drafting. It may have some evidence about the provenance of the rule as to how it came in.

I have been very interested to listen to what the witnesses have said. I usually go directly to questions but in this instance, it is also important to listen to what the members have to say. We bring considerable knowledge from our constituencies in respect of this issue. I represent Dublin Bay South, a slightly unusual constituency educationally. I receive an enormous number of questions from parents about their children applying to schools. In general, most of them are in respect of national schools. Particularly with the first child, parents do not know what school their child will get into because the national schools in my area are significantly oversubscribed. The most distressful and pressing issue I face - this may be of interest to Ms O'Rourke - is the number of parents who cannot get access for children with special educational needs in the area.

My constituency is unusual because within it there are, by my count, 12 fee-paying secondary schools. The reason for so many fee-paying secondary schools is obviously down to history. It is probably where the middle classes in Dublin lived predominantly in the earlier part of the last century.

There was very limited choice there, and there is very limited choice for parents in Dublin 6 and Dublin 4 with regard to where to send their children to secondary school other than to fee-paying secondary schools because of their dominance in those areas. I welcome that we recently have had a new Educate Together secondary school in Sandymount, and we have a new Educate Together secondary school in Harold's Cross. I hope that in time the 12 second level fee-paying schools there would no longer need to be fee paying. I do realise that it gives rise to issues. I have listened to Deputy Ó Ríordáin, and he makes a valid point about why should there be preferential treatment given to students whose father or grandfather went to a particular school. I believe that the answer I am hearing back from the witnesses is that while this is an issue, it is not the biggest issue we are facing in the context of admissions. If it is the case that this criterion is not really being used, what is the necessity of it? What benefit is it serving to the schools?