Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

If an application is made in writing, a formal letter decreeing acceptance or refusal should issue. If the application is put on the long finger by the school and a formal reply is not issued, the appeals committee will deem that to be a refusal. I accept the point that parents should be aware of that and I will examine how information about this can be disseminated.

As Deputy O'Sullivan said, regulations will not be required everywhere but if I make regulations on a national basis, they will apply everywhere. We need to be careful about what is most appropriate in different areas to address this issue.

A number of regions were identified for the examination of different issues. For example, one regional office is examining the position of children with special needs, another is examining enrolment policies while another is examining the treatment of immigrant children. I am not sure when the work will be completed because they must examine the resources being provided to schools as well the policy of schools and so on. That is a good way of identifying the schools, for example, with all the language teachers and the resource teachers, particularly at second level, where there is not a general allocation per se. As soon as I have that information, I will make a determination. However, I assure the Deputies that the audit cannot be allowed to drift because schools should not be permitted to get away with this policy. The most sinister aspect of this is the underhand way in which they are operating. If schools were upfront about what they were doing, parents would be not as worried about this issue. However, people feel rejected and they have no come back because they do not receive a formal refusal with which they can work.

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