Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Where a school is approved, it is always approved for a certain capacity in terms of its intake. That is to ensure we provide schools in line with the demographic needs of each area and that is always clear when the school is approved.

On the wider issue raised by Deputy Cassells, we have a new patronage model. We are commencing surveys across the country to encourage the live transfer of schools from one patronage to another. These surveys will establish the desire of parents to see such a transfer and it will be operated by the locally supported education training boards, ETBs. This is a new approach to seek to accelerate what has been a very difficult and slow process of transferring from an existing patronage to another one.

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