Dr. Michael Redmond:

When it was first drafted it was definitely due to a concern for family continuity and the relationships between families and schools. We have repeated many times that whatever weight the committee members wish to give to it, as legislators, is up to them. That family continuity and the relationships between families and schools is a very real phenomenon in Irish life. We have not been the most mobile population in the world and we do tend to settle and stay in places, but of course this is changing in many ways now. We need to be conscious also of not commodifying education and saying that one gets the same product; it is not like McDonald's where one would get the same product in every location around the country or around the world. Education is laden with values, and it is something where parents wish to make sure there is the closest possible alignment with their family values and their educational values, which essentially is the in loco parentis function. The parents are the primary educators and this is the constitutional protection for their choice around the placement of their children, and schools are obliged, quite rightly, to take them. We will not keep rehashing the arguments about the capacity issue but certainly this is as much about the values-based piece, and a shared value between schools and families, as it is about any other element of this very important and wide-ranging conversation.