Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This process is welcome but based on the Minister’s answer, the patron will decide what happens next. Where does the Department come in? Are we going to listen to the voices of parents whose children are not yet in school? The Minister promised me that we would. The parent of a child in sixth class who is leaving the school in a few months has much more say in the future configuration of the schools than somebody who lives locally whose children are aged three, two or one. Is the patron the one who decides? What is the Department’s role in this? Can the Minister intervene in this process to say she is not satisfied with how this has been rolled out? The facilitator told a meeting that he would take the temperature of the room when deciding what happens next. Can we have a more scientific approach to this. It is easy to take a eircode from a parent and the PPS number of their child to determine what their view might be. There is a much better way of doing this. If someone was designing something to set it up to fail, this is exactly what they would do. I have more faith in the Minister than I have in the process that was undertaken here. Her Department needs to intervene and carry out a much more widescale consultation with parents who live locally.

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