Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The school under reference in Fermoy was established in 2018 under the patronage divestment process. Fermoy was one of a number of areas surveyed in 2012-13 under the patronage divesting process, where there was sufficient parental demand supporting changes in school patronage. The areas surveyed were areas where demographics were not growing and therefore it was unlikely that a new multidenominational school would be established for demographic reasons alone.

The clear policy on patronage divestment was to use existing educational infrastructure to facilitate provision of diversity in areas where there was no demographic imperative to establish new schools. The reason for this approach was the imperative - equally valid now as it was then - to focus the schools capital programme on the provision of additional mainstream and special education school places at both primary and post-primary levels to ensure that every pupil can access a school place. As part of the process of identifying a suitable accommodation solution which would facilitate the establishment of the school, the Department liaised with Cork Education and Training Board. In order to facilitate the establishment of the new school, the ETB agreed to the co-location of the Educate Together school at the former technical school in Fermoy, together with some of the ETB’s further education and training services.

Prior to the establishment of the new school in 2018 under the patronage divestment process, the Department and Educate Together, as school patron, agreed that given the accommodation available at the property and the need for the ETB to accommodate some further education and training services from the property, the school would be established as a four-classroom school and that the school would maintain this configuration in the accommodation in the former technical school unless an existing school building was freed up for use in the area. As part of this engagement, the Department outlined to the school patron the importance of enrolments being managed within the available accommodation in a sustainable way and of this being communicated by the school board of management so that parents could be fully informed and in order to manage expectations.

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