Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat. I acknowledge and do not disagree with anything the Minister said. He is correct that these concerns were raised last year by principals. They were also raised with me and I raised them privately with the then Minister, Deputy Bruton, but nothing materialised. It is also the case that the Minister and the Department do not know how many children from Ashbourne are being educating outside the town. I know for a fact that the Minister's officials handed out a list of alternative schools to a number of parents last year, including one school that is 22 km away. I am aware that children from Ashbourne are attending school in Drogheda, Bray, Malahide and other parts of Dublin. There are people whose children are on the list for Malahide as well because that is where the parents came from. I do not think the Department is able to track this activity, which is failing in the assessments that are taking place.

There are two major difficulties, one of which is ready-made families, which was first mentioned some years ago by a former and esteemed colleague of mine. These are families who have older children when they move into particular areas. These children are not expected and that is a particular problem as well. They should be expected. This issue should have been dealt with at least 12 years ago when the Department first started to deal with these issues. The other issue in Ashbourne is the people for whom English is not their first language, many of whom are Irish citizens and all of their children are Irish citizens. These people are as local as anyone else in the area. There is definitely a language barrier with a proportion of these parents and that is a problem. In an effort to get some movement on this issue I previously used the word "discrimination". There is no question that there is a language element to this. People either do not understand the system or they are not confident to communicate. That is my experience. Without question, the number of parents that have been in touch with me and other politicians has increased this year. We need action quickly and we need certainty for parents and schools. The Minister spoke about September 2019. Parents watching and listening to this debate are worried about the future of their children and their schooling and they need certainty fairly quickly.

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