Ms Linda Rainsberry:

I welcome the suggestions that the schools define their own catchment area because the schools know from whence they normally draw their pupils. Then it is really just a matter of transparency and not a matter of restriction. If it is simply a matter for transparency for parents to know where pupils come from, how big an area the school serves and what are their chances of getting in, that is not a problem. However, if the catchment area is imposed on a school, it is most likely, particularly in the case of Protestant schools, that the catchment area is too small and some Protestant children will end up without a school to go to.