Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

Having often found myself explaining our system of school patronage to people, I decided to participate in a history session to understand it better. Much of what I learned about predates the foundation of the State. Our system is not at all obvious. One of its advantages is that it offers choices, but it also has disadvantages. Attention has been drawn to the fact that most schools are vested in private bodies even though in most cases they are regarded as part of the public system. That can bring its own difficulties. There is no real choice if the schools in one's catchment area are over-subscribed, as is the case in most areas. All of the secondary schools in my constituency are well over-subscribed. The ones that have flexibility are drawing students from a wider catchment area. The reality is that if one really wants to go to a co-educational school, but the school in one's area is not co-educational, one does not have a choice if the school of one's choice is in an area that is over-subscribed.

The notion of choice is not really available for many people. The Bill provides for the redeployment of teachers but in my view this may be difficult in cases where the ethos and the patronage of schools is very different. The education system is very varied and it can be particularly varied depending on the part of the country.

One of my concerns is with regard to the provisions in the Bill for the redeployment of teachers and I refer to the statistics made available to us. I wish to draw attention to a problematic matter which occurs in fast-growing areas, including the area I represent. I refer to the use of a historical model for calculating the number of school places required. The census information is not used in this calculation. A school is required to demonstrate the number of children it will have but this must be provided a year in advance-----

See this speech in context