Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I say to the Deputy that facts are facts and they remain as facts, irrespective of the timeframe. Significant progress has been made. The Deputy will be aware, for example, that last year as an interim measure, eligibility criteria were adjusted.

Rather than eligibility revolving around the nearest school, I put in place measures so that students would be facilitated if they were opting to go to their second-nearest school. This has alleviated quite considerably many of the difficulties that heretofore had been experienced. To be fair, I believe there has been a general acknowledgement of the importance of this progressive move.

The steering group has undertaken extraordinarily efficient public consultation that involved meeting with pupils and parents and consulting the broadest range of stakeholders by actively seeking their opinions so we could have a system in place that would meet the demands of the time in terms of climate and the demands of the time in terms of capacity for students. That work is nearing completion.

See this speech in context