Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Déanaim comhghairdeas leis an Aire Stáit as a phost nua. Go n-éirí leis.

We have had a really positive change in recent years in the way we assess patronage in schools. That communities actually get to have a say and indicate to the Department very directly the kind of school they want represents a very positive change by comparison with where we were when I was growing up. I have expressed the view before that it is probably unlikely that we will ever again have a Catholic school established under new patronage in this country because the reality is that communities are choosing to rebalance the way our schools are operated away from that kind of patronage and towards different forms that give a different service to different communities and address the needs that exist in them. However, the way the Department assesses that need is by way of a plebiscite in a geographic area. Therefore, if there is to be a school in a particular area, the Department will ask the people who live there what kind of school they want. That is legitimate in its own way.

The difficulty that applies in my constituency, Dún Laoghaire, in particular but also across the whole of Dublin is that the geographic area is not necessarily the only community served by the relevant school. With extensive transport links throughout Dublin, including the DART and Luas lines and the new BusConnects spines that go through the city, people may travel quite a substantial distance to get to school. Therefore, the community served by a new school may be much larger than the one next door to it or down the road from it. This is particularly true of post-primary schools. The example that comes to mind for me is Cherrywood, Dublin. The local authority for the Dún Laoghaire area, certainly when I was a member of it, spent a great deal of time and energy putting together a de facto new city in Cherrywood. That is now starting to fill out with a new population and it is a wonderful, diverse place. As it fills up with shops and services, including schools, it will make for a really great place to live. It is already a great place to live, but as the things I have mentioned come, it will really come into its own. There are sites within Cherrywood that have been identified for new schools, one of which is for a post-primary school. There is already another post-primary school. Blackrock Educate Together Secondary School, which will eventually be located at the top of Newtownpark Avenue, is temporarily resident in the Educate Together primary school in Cherrywood. However, there is another site earmarked for a post-primary school.

One of the big issues is that if there is a plebiscite only in the Cherrywood area, it ignores the fact that the end of the Luas line is in Cherrywood. The Luas serves people all the way into town. Anybody who lives on the Luas line, whether it is in somewhere like Ranelagh or farther afield, can very easily get to school on the Luas. Therefore, consideration of where patronage extends should account for an area beyond Cherrywood. The reason I make this point is that there is currently a campaign under way by people seeking a Gaelcholáiste in the area. There are a number of Gaelscoileanna in the area, particularly outside the immediate catchment area of Cherrywood, the Dún Laoghaire constituency included. Although we have a Gaelcholáiste, Coláiste Ráithín in Bray, and Coláiste Eoin and Coláiste Íosagáin in Stillorgan, there is not a school available for the people who are graduating out of the Gaelscoileanna, a Gaelcholáiste, for them to continue their education trí mheán na Gaeilge.

If you apply the strict criterion of just asking the people who live in a strict geographic area what kind of school they want, it is less likely that they will say a Gaelcholáiste. Therefore, there is a whole community of people whose children are leaving a Gaelscoil and graduating into the secondary school arena who would love to have education through Irish but who, because of the narrow system the Department operates, are not really recognised. Patronage is important but An Foras Patrúnachta, which has done great work in this area, is at a little bit of a loss in this regard. I wonder whether the system can be extended a little more flexibly.

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