Dr. Michael Redmond:

I completely agree with what the Senator has said. I was born and raised in Ballyfermot also and I know the transformative power of education and what it can do in a person’s life. I have worked in education all my life and have led two DEIS schools, one in Finglas and one in Loughlinstown, and they have both been extraordinarily inclusive. The work we did around including Traveller children, not just in those two schools but in schools right across all three sectors represented here today, was outstanding. There are forces at play that are to some extent profoundly cultural, while some are historical and some are societal, but none of these gives us any excuse for exclusionary practices. It is illegal for a school to refuse to enrol a Traveller child, a child with special educational needs, or for a school to use anything other than the criteria set out in law to deal with the oversubscription crisis that exists both at primary and post-primary level in our country. I am so happy to say that because it makes things easy for boards of management.

Since the Senator has raised the issue of the composition of boards of management, that too is set out in the Education Act and in the articles of management under which schools need to work.

There is the capacity there to open this conversation and I am delighted to see the Senator opening it here as opposed to coming to a quick and easy solution that would not be reflective of reality. This should not just involve all of the various stakeholders and members of our community and the wonderful diversity that is emerging but young people’s voices also.

We really need to reflect on the incredible amount of voluntarism that is demanded of the citizens of this State in acting as members of boards of management in 4,000 schools throughout the country.

In other words, our boards of management and governance are based on a volunteer model. The legislative, administrative, regulatory and health and safety demands that have been imposed on boards of management over recent years, all of which are very valid, are now on the shoulders of local people who are not trained for it and are not invested in it other than by virtue of the fact that their children happen to go to the school, they are a member of the staff or they are a nominee of the trustees in our sector.