Dr. Niall Muldoon:

One of the things we need to remember here is that if we take away this piece, we will reduce the level of over-subscription. At present people are applying to schools they do not live near and that changes the demographic of people who are applying. It creates an opportunity for those schools so we will change things that way. One assumes that the people who stop applying or who are not allowed to apply outside their area will then be available to other schools. That changes things.

In terms of avoiding over-subscription per se, we have argued for many years that it requires forward planning and population planning. That is something that every other country in Europe is well able to do. They plan ahead, recognise where the population growth is going to be and allow for that. We need to put a better system in place in that regard. We need to develop the resources that will allow that to happen.

In terms of the subscription piece, there are criteria out there. I was looking at the submissions that were made last week. There are 220 post-primary schools in the ETB network and 27 community national school. Only eight of those use the past pupil condition and only two had to invoke it. There are criteria out there that people are using all of the time that are suitable and appropriate. I am not going to name them all but I think most people are comfortable with the idea of a sibling so that families are not split up. There are also discussions about mixed gender as opposed to single gender schools which might change the way families are allowed to enter schools and where they look for schools. Those sorts of things need to be considered. The discussion is well on its way here but I am not going to lay down criteria. Discussions with the educators who are currently involved, with the principals and the groups who appeared before the committee last week on the criteria are necessary. There are four or five clear criteria, including locality and other areas can be looked at and clearly moved forward but the idea of past pupil just does not ring true. The Department of Education stated in its strategy that admissions policies must be equal and fair and it does not ring true to have a past pupil element.