Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 28 June 2022
Select Committee on Education and Skills
Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2020: Committee Stage
Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Apologies have been received from Deputy Alan Farrell and Deputy Conway-Walsh.
I remind Members and officials to ensure that their mobile phones are switched off for the duration of the meeting as they interfere with the broadcasting equipment of the Houses.
This meeting has been convened to consider the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2020. I remind Members that should a vote be called, they must be physically present in the committee room in order to vote.
Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I acknowledge officially the students in the Gallery. It is lovely to have Young Social Innovators students from Coláiste Bríde here.
I absolutely understand and fully appreciate Deputy Ó Ríordáin's motivation in bringing forward this Bill. Equally, however, I am very conscious that schools have put a considerable amount of work, time, effort and energy into developing the new school admission policies, which have taken root in our schools only in the past academic year. A key feature of the Education (Admission to Schools) Act is that where schools are not oversubscribed, they must accept all applicants. The vast majority of our schools are not oversubscribed. Equally, schools have the opportunity to opt out of the provision. My view is that there is insufficient evidence available to us at this point to indicate that the provision this Bill proposes to delete poses difficulties for those seeking admission to schools where it is in use. I note also that the pre-legislative scrutiny report of the committee recommends not only deletion but also the setting up of an expert group. I believe that the establishment of an expert group to review the impact of the provision of the Act would be a useful first step. I consider that a reasonable approach. I therefore signal my intention to table on Report Stage an amendment to the Deputy's Bill which will establish an expert group to examine the impact of subsection 62(10)(b) on school admissions and provide a report detailing the expert group's findings.
Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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Notwithstanding the Minister's goodwill towards my motivation, I am crushingly disappointed by her attitude to the Bill and by the Department's response to the Bill. It flies completely in the face of what the Minister is trying to do this week in respect of section 37A of the Education Act. We are told to rush through legislation this week in order for it to be ready for September, yet we are told that schools cannot change their admissions policies for this September or even the following September. The Minister tells me there is no evidence this provision has any effect. Why is it there, then? The very basis of the argument is that if even one child is disadvantaged by the provision, it needs to go. I am blue in the face making the same argument over and over again but I will make it again. This provision was inserted at the behest of those who are trying unfairly to keep an elitist bloodline running through certain schools' admissions policies, from grandfather to father to son or from grandmother to mother to daughter. It is patently unfair on, for example, children of early school leavers, children whose parents are not from the area and, indeed, children whose parents are not from Ireland. We can say all we want about Ukrainian students in this State, but I ask the Minister to imagine if even one Ukrainian was not able to access a second level school place on the basis of this provision because there are greater rights for those whose parents or grandparents went to the school in question. The lack of energy or understanding on the part of the Department on this baffles me because there is no argument against what I and the committee and people such as Deputy Ó Laoghaire, who supported this Bill, are trying to achieve. This provision should not have been put into law in the first place; it should not still be there. I ask the Minister to imagine even one family in this State saying in years to come: "We had hoped our child might be admitted to second level school A, but it was not possible because my parents did not go to school." In a Republic, it should make us all deeply ashamed that such a provision exists.
I remember the previous debate we had on this in the Dáil. I walked into the Chamber and was excited as to what the Minister might provide. I remember my first contribution being to the effect that I hoped she had come to the table with some level of understanding as to how we could collectively work together. I was crushed by her presentation because I believe in these Houses of the Oireachtas and I believe there is no opposition, really, to what we are trying to achieve here.
Education is everything. It is all that has benefited some families to break out of poverty. Education is the only opportunity unless one's parents have money. This is why it is so emotivel and so important.
I would ask the Minister to reconsider her position and the Department's position on this. The Minister could easily row in behind this. The provision could easily be deleted. Every school in the country only has to change its enrolment policies for September 2023. It is as simple as that. One no longer gets to choose a child whose parents or grandparents went to this school over some other child. It is as simple as that.
It is having an effect in areas that I represent or on parents who come to me from all over the country. It is patently wrong and patently unfair. The argument that we cannot be sure how many people are affected by it does not stack up. It should not be there and it needs to go.
In summary, I have been leading this process. I was delighted to be in the position to bring it forward. The Department told me that the Minister would delay Second Stage for 12 months in order to do all the groundwork that needed to be done and I waited patiently from November 2020 to November 2021. The Minister knows that is true. We delayed the passing of Second Stage for 12 months. We are in a position where the Minister comes back to this table and I am patiently waiting here for this Bill to be passed, but we want more reviews and we want to see how schools can have a number of admissions cycles to work through it. What the Minister is doing is wrong. The Minister knows it is wrong. The Department knows its wrong. I do not know what lobby group has such a hold over the Department that this needs to stay. I can imagine who they are.
On this issue, the Minister needs to change her position. The Minister needs to row in behind the Bill. This section of the Act needs to be deleted. We could all go back to normal and look children in the eye in September 2023 and say that it does not matter who one's parents or grandparents are.
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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I reiterate my support for this legislation. I commend Deputy Ó Ríordáin on his work in relation to it.
We had pre-legislative scrutiny of this legislation. There is no coherent argument against it. There is no argument that ultimately holds any water.
On the argument around most of the schools being undersubscribed, the problem, as with anything, in relation to admissions and who is admitted will only arise when a school is oversubscribed. It is for that reason we have regulations as such. It is for that reason we have admissions policies. If no school was oversubscribed, we would not need admissions policies at all and every child would simply have a place.
The circumstances in which this applies - maybe in most schools it is not an issue because they are not oversubscribed - arise in the schools which are oversubscribed. There are parts of the country where there is severe competition for school places in areas where there is a large young population. In parts of Cork, much of Dublin, Kildare, parts of Wicklow and parts of County Meath there is a significant young population. In those places, what the current legislation allows for is that where there are a limited number of places and there is a decision to be made between a child who lives 15 miles away but whose father or mother attended the school and a child who lives five doors away, it is the child who lives 15 miles away who will be preferred. That is objectively true under the current proposal. It provides that a school takes up the scope and the powers that it has to put in place such an admissions policy. That being the case, that is the child who will be preferred. That should not be acceptable to us in any way.
It is perfectly reasonable, in terms of families and their arrangements, etc., that preference is given to siblings. That is a reasonable proposition, but in relation to parents, and even grandparents, one is potentially disadvantaging the local child. It is the local child who should be at the centre of any decisions made on admissions. Every child should be in a position to attend his or her local school provided that there are adequate spaces and if there are not, decisions about who gets in need to be made on a fair basis. It is not a fair basis to prioritise those whose parents or grandparents attended. One will continue to have a school tradition because many families will still live in the local community and many children will attend the school their parents and grandparents attended; the traditions, the culture and the history of the school can continue in that way, but it should not be at the expense of the child who lives five doors away from the school.
Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I thank both Deputies. I clearly hear the points the Deputies are making and I acknowledge the good faith in which they make those arguments. I also acknowledge that it has always been my intention to work to the best of my capacity and ability with the Deputies here. I am appreciative of the manner in which the Deputies work with me.
On this, I would have to say that there is a body of work to be done in terms of gathering the data. It was a recommendation of the pre-legislative scrutiny report from the committee that an expert group be established to review the impact of the provision and that is a useful first step. I am cognisant of the amount of work that goes in when a school has to devise a new admissions policy, which was done, in fairness, by the schools and has been enacted since September 2021, which means this was the first academic year for that admissions policy to take root.
I am simply asking that we would allow sufficient time for the expert group to meet, for it to have an opportunity to review the cycle of admissions over a period of time, to present that back, and then we will make an informed and adjudicated decision as to how to move forward. That is all I am asking for. I am not taking away from the genuine nature of the arguments and proposals the Deputies make. I am simply saying that it is important that a fully informed factual account is presented to the Department by this expert group so that an appropriate decision can be made. It may well be the decision that the Deputies were advocating for but it is important that the evidence be allowed to be put forward.
It is my proposal that we allow time for the expert group to be established and that the group would specifically examine the impact of the section on school admissions and provide a report detailing the group's findings.