Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

It is the case that parents are choosing to send their children to the school with the good name and good record. I have some anecdotal evidence in my area of where some parents are paying to send their child of average or good academic ability to a fee-paying school while choosing to send their child with a learning difficulty to a different but non-fee-paying school. Those are the kind of choices for which it is very difficult to legislate or create regulations.

Of the 88 appeals with regard to refusals of post-primary schools to enrol pupils this year, 30 were upheld. In other words, the parent won in the case of 30 appeals.

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