Mr. Gerry Bennett:

The patron has asked that the chairs of the boards of management and the principals of those three schools and even the fourth school come together to see if there is a way locally to guarantee the future success and continuance of those schools. There is no magic wand. That is the position currently.

The patron has said to the boards that they need to sit down together, which they have done, and to put options forward for the best approach. The patron would want to go along with that. The trustees have been asked to get involved in that also.

A situation arose but it was not acceptable. The questions asked were genuine; I understand that. The North Monastery campus has a lot of history attached to it. When it comes down to it, as I said already, this is all about the children in those schools and ensuring appropriate provision is made for them and a quality education is available in those schools. If the numbers keep going down, that becomes more difficult so something has to be done. It would be remiss of the trustees and patrons not to begin to address a situation where there is an obvious difficulty in terms of enrolments. Although it might not suit people to have a school like the North Monastery being discussed in the context of a possible reconfiguration, it may be in the best interests of that school in the longer term.