Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I support Deputy O'Sullivan's amendment. The Minister recognises the serious nature of this issue and I do not deny it will not be easy to address. Problems in respect of enrolment arise at both primary and post-primary level, particularly in areas of rapid growth. In some cases, groups of schools form unofficial committees to address accommodation crises by operating enrolment policies based on age, so that older children can be accommodated first. While such policies are being implemented out of necessity and for the right reasons, they might be found to be officially improper. In a sense, these policies assist the Department by providing a basis for making decisions on whether children can attend schools.

If the Department were more interactive on this issue, it could solve problems such as cherry-picking. As new types of schools are developed, these problems may become more apparent in some schools than in others. For various reasons, certain types of schools can automatically exclude children.

While I support the notion of giving schools flexibility in their enrolment policies, guidelines are important. Difficulties can also arise when schools change their policies at short notice. The best example of this are secondary schools which, by changing enrolment policies at short notice to address capacity issues, affect children who attended adjacent primary schools in the expectation of automatically progressing to the secondary school concerned. The result is that a student in sixth class may discover the secondary school he or she plans to attend is full and operating a lottery for places. Of all the ways of deciding on enrolment, a lottery is probably the least favourable. Clearly, such issues only arise in towns where choice is available. That problem should be addressed, although it should also be recognised that the schools concerned are not changing their policies merely to exclude students from particular backgrounds.

By introducing regulations, the Minister could put the onus on schools to operate proper enrolment policies and, for that reason, I support Deputy O'Sullivan's amendments.

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