Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I identify two particular issues. First, in areas where schools are currently not oversubscribed, there is the issue of availability of schools, either non-denominational or multidenominational. What we need in those cases is the investment in more choice so that parents have the option of the choice they wish. In many cases, it is not to go to a school which has a particular religion or ethos.

There is also the particular issue in 20% of cases where schools are oversubscribed. In many of these situations, we see children being able to travel from outside of the school's catchment area and gain access to that school based on their ethos. In doing that, we see many children within the school's catchment area, who do not share the denomination or ethos of the school, not being able to gain access to a local school as a result. What we need to see is a rebalancing of the current situation, so the option for a school to be able to give admission preference to a child who shares the ethos of the school is restricted only to children for whom that school is the closest of their shared ethos.

This would mean we would not see situations where people travel significant distances, bypassing other schools which share their ethos, to gain entry to a particular school based on their religion and, in that, depriving other children from the locality of school places. That rebalancing needs take place. It would be an appropriate way to deal with this. It might not satisfy everyone but I believe it is about balancing the different and various rights but also the different desires of people as to how their children will be educated. For that reason, that is the pathway we would be seeking to go down, rather than the total removal of the section.

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