Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

When Deputy Quinn is Minister for Education and Skills, he will no doubt act on that immediately. We have that system at third level and it could be adapted to suit the needs at primary school level. I look forward to that happening.

The parent I spoke to today who was offered three places already has a daughter in another school which did not offer a place because it has an enrolment policy whereby the child comes first and the family does not get a look in so in the case of two siblings, the other sibling can go somewhere else. There is a fundamental question not only about the right of the child, but also about the right of the child within the family and the stress being placed on the family by having to embark on not only one school journey in one direction, but on another school journey in another direction. What is a single parent to do - make choices about which child arrives late at school or which child is left standing outside the school gate because the other child must be brought into the school? While I fully agree with the ethos of and the reasoning behind the Educate Together movement, there is an essential flaw there whereby each child is taken at face value and siblings are not considered in the overall picture.

I refer to green schools. I heard on "Morning Ireland" that the Minister of State, Deputy Cuffe, visited a school yesterday to encourage the minimisation of transport to and from school for social and environmental reasons. That is an issue we could grasp in enrolment policy. Let us consider the family as well as the child to minimise the stress and trauma involved.

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