Mr. Seamus Mulconry:

In terms of the ethos, our concern over not being able to give priority to Catholic children in cases of oversubscription is not related to the ethos. In areas with oversubscribed schools, there tends to be a number of schools in the area that are oversubscribed. In a recent article in The Irish Times, Kitty Holland wrote about her problems in getting her child into a school. She pointed out that she could not get into the Catholic school because of baptism, but in point of fact the list was so long that baptism would not have made a difference anyway. Her child could not get into the Protestant school. However, the interdenominational school and the Gaelscoil were taking people from outside the catchment area.

These things happen. If, as a Catholic parent, I was trying to get my child into a school there, I could find myself being pushed down into a school with another patron rather than into a Catholic school where I would have the ethos I wanted for my child. It is a concern around Catholic parents being able to access Catholic schools in cases of oversubscription because they could actually be disadvantaged where they could not get their children into other schools.