Mr. Paul Crone:

I would say there is not a school leader in the country who does not want equality and the best for their students. As described by Ms O’Sullivan, schools that are oversubscribed are put in an untenable position and they have to make decisions to categorise students. This is one such consideration. A number of schools I am aware of, as we spoke about it at our executive, discussed this point and whether to include it. Some of them decided they would include and it ended up not being used. Some of them decided they would not use it because they felt it was unfair, but it depends on the level of oversubscription. With some schools, they would be arguing over something but they will never be oversubscribed. Therefore, it does not make any difference. If we view that this point is potentially discriminatory, then it should not be there. That would be my point. Perhaps we need to work with the provision of school places to prevent those pinch points in particular areas where oversubscription is a significant problem. If I was put to the pin of my collar over the next 20 minutes I could probably identify the ten or 20 areas in the country where that is a problem. In general, school leaders want the best for their students. They want education to be the best enabler, for it to be available for everybody and for nobody to be discommoded.