Mr. Pat McKelvey:

Gabhaim míle buíochas leis an Chairperson and the committee for the opportunity to present. I am the director of schools for Cork Education and Training Board, ETB, and I represent ETBI today. There are 250 post-primary schools in the ETB sector, of which 48 offer education through the medium of Gaeilge. In addition, we have 27 community national schools within our remit.

When people walk into an ETB school, they walk into a school reflective of its own local community. They might see signs on the corridor walls reading "co-educational", "multidenominational", "excellence in teaching and learning", "an inclusive school" or "a diverse school". When the school bell rings and the students of an ETB school emerge onto the corridors, they will witness at first-hand a manifestation of those signs including: children emerging from a special educational setting, international students, children in receipt of learning support, children from Traveller backgrounds, students of various religious persuasions and none, refugee children and children living in the community. They have to ask themselves how all of these students, representing such diversity, come through an admissions process and end up under one roof. The answer is simple; in an ETB school, the school community is a reflection of those who live and work within its environs. An ETB enrolment or admissions process is open. We accept all and, where we are oversubscribed, we have criteria within our policies that are very much embedded in a spirit of supporting the members of the local community. Yes, we have admissions criteria to support a fair and open admissions process. These are used especially where we have an oversubscribed school. These criteria are very much grounded in a community focus within the spirit of accepting all students and providing a welcome for everyone.

The parent or grandparent criterion is a cause of concern and ETBI would have no difficulty with its exclusion from the legislation. Many siblings of current students, students from primary feeder schools and students in the recognised catchment area are, in fact, children of past pupils. The enrolment of these students, when added to the 25% of places set aside for past pupils, often results in a far greater percentage of past pupils in the cohort of students in any incoming year group than would be representative of the local community.

While we have an opportunity today to consider the current Bill, it would help to give some consideration to all areas relating to admissions that are a cause of concern within the current legislation. There is a loophole regarding applicants applying to more than one school in that there is nothing in the legislation to set out a timeline for when parents must tell the school that they are not accepting a place. The Act does not allow schools that are not oversubscribed to refuse a student on the grounds of age. This presents difficulties in respect of children coming into primary or secondary schools who have not reached the age laid out in the Department's regulations. The Act does not allow for a principal or board of management to uphold its duty of care to the school community in the case of an applicant who poses a threat. If the school has a place, such children must be accepted into the school. This is all fine as long as all schools apply the Act in the same way but that has not always been our experience in the ETB sector. The issue of twins, triplets and other siblings who seek to join a school in the same year group in the same year is a difficult one. Should we treat their applications separately or together? Either way, there is potential for discrimination. The approval or sanction by the special educational needs officer, SENO, of a special class often comes after the annual admissions notice has been published and the admissions application window closed.

ETB schools have an open and transparent approach to admissions. While the parent or grandparent criterion does exist, it exists in only a very small number of ETB schools. Where it does exist, it is so low down the list of criteria that it is not often used. Indeed, many students of past pupils will be offered a place as a sibling of a current student, as a student of a feeder school or because they are from the catchment area.

As such, it would not be a cause of great concern to ETBI if it were removed, provided it were removed for all schools.