Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this issue on behalf of my colleague, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, the Minister for Education and Skills. As Deputy Ferris will be aware, the Minister announced in June of last year that up to the year 2016 a total of 20 new primary and 20 new post-primary schools are to be established across a number of locations, to cater for our increased pupil numbers. Included in that announcement is a new post-primary school planned for Greystones in County Wicklow and which is scheduled to commence in September 2014. The Minister also announced new criteria and arrangements for the recognition and determination of patronage of these new primary and second-level schools. The new arrangements published by my Department include the establishment of a new schools establishment group, an independent advisory group to advise him on the patronage of the new schools following its consideration of a report prepared by departmental officials.

These new arrangements provide a balanced approach in allowing applications to be made by prospective patrons for the establishment of schools. The criteria to be applied in respect of patronage decisions place a particular emphasis on parental demand for plurality and diversity of patronage. In accordance with the application and patron selection process put in place by the Department, an invitation for applications for patronage of the new post-primary schools issued in July 2011. The closing date for receipt of applications from prospective patrons, having been extended to accommodate the possible submission of joint patronage applications, was 13 January 2012.

Applications for patronage of the new post-primary school in Greystones were received from Church of Ireland, Educate Together and County Wicklow VEC. All the applicant patron bodies proposed to establish multidenominational schools in response to parental wishes. There is only one post-primary school in the Greystones feeder area, namely, St. David's Holy Faith school, an English-medium Catholic school under the patronage of the Holy Faith Sisters. The provision of a multidenominational school would serve to increase the diversity of school provision and broaden parental choice in the area. All applicants agreed to comply with the relevant requirements set out by the Department and submitted very comprehensive applications. All were assessed in line with the published criteria which clearly state patron bodies proposing schools will be asked to provide evidence of parental demand. There was a considerable difference in expressed demand as between the different applications. All other matters being equal, on the basis of parental demand, the recommendation was that patronage of the new school in Greystones be awarded to the Church of Ireland.

Departmental officials submitted a report to the new schools advisory committee in June 2012 for its consideration and a further submission to the Minister for consideration and final decision. On 25 July the Minister announced his decisions on the patronage of 14 new post-primary schools to be established in 2013 and 2014. The combination of the existing provision and the establishment of a new multidenominational post-primary school in the Greystones area will cater for the needs of all pupils in the area. My Department will continue to monitor enrolments in the area to ensure there is sufficient school accommodation to meet projected future demands. Such is the scale of the projected growth in our post-primary pupil population that the Minister expects there will be a need to establish more new schools to meet the future demand for additional pupil places post-2016. The area referred to by the Deputy is one of several areas of population growth under consideration in this context. When the locations where further new schools will be provided are finalised and announced during 2013, it will be open to patron bodies, including Educate Together, to make an application for patronage in respect of any of them.

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