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

I appreciate entirely what the Minister of State said. The OPPS is excellent. The way we have changed how we assess patronage is a good thing. I also appreciate what the Minister of State said about the criteria. The key in his answer is that the process is open and "provides objective information to parents in the relevant school planning areas". That is the difficulty I have. If we are only taking about parents in a specific area, we are excluding parents outside that area. It is a particular problem.

I did not give the Minister of State advance notice that I was going to talk about Cherrywood so I absolutely accept that he does not have that specific information. It is, however, a principle that applies across the country in relation to Gaeloideachas. There are necessarily fewer Irish speakers in a non-Gaeltacht community so they are going to be spread across a wider area, notwithstanding the fact that there are enough of them to justify a Gaelcholáiste. That is the issue. I can tell the Minister of State, from the point of view of a layperson, that the school planning areas are something of a mystery. They do not follow the criteria one might normally expect. If we stick to those areas, we are excluding people from a wider community who wish to come together to form a school committee that follows a particular and, according to the Minister of State's reply, diverse criteria. I use the example of Cherrywood. There are people from a wider area than just that school catchment area who dearly want a Gaelcholáiste in Cherrywood. It is an area that has been identified as needing a secondary school. Even a site has been identified. Will the Minister of State bring back to the Department the proposal that if we are truly to achieve the kind of diversity we are trying to eke out in terms of schools, we change that strict geographic criterion in respect of the assessment of patronage? We should ask people beyond that area if there is a basis on which we can put together a school that is a little bit different, in this instance, a Gaelcholáiste, a scoil trí mheán na Gaeilge.

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