Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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The need for diversity and pluralism within the education system is critically important. Parents and children should have a right to access education that reflects their ethos and value system. It is a healthy society that provides and embraces that level of diversity and that diversity is a threat to nobody. At this stage in our development as a society, nobody opposes diversity and pluralism within the education system in Ireland.

However, the provision of multidenominational and non-denominational education in this State has happened at a snail's pace and this has caused massive difficulties for parents and children. I attended a public meeting in Trim this week at which there was noticeable shock and anger among parents regarding what has happened to the plans for the development of their own school in Trim. The Minister must admit that the process of providing multidenominational education has been cack-handed at best.

Since becoming a Deputy, one thing I have noticed is that decisions are often made by one section of a Department but those decisions do not necessarily have the plans, support or resources to happen properly. One often sees a decision made and something started but when it comes to implementation, the project quickly runs into significant problems. In my view, this is what is happening with the five Educate Together schools that have had a Departmental half-stream limit imposed upon their next school year.

Let us consider Trim, for example. Trim is a growing commuter town in Meath. It is well provided with Catholic, Protestant and community schools and the past four years have seen the addition of the Educate Together school. That school is going from strength to strength, with great teachers and great education. It has added to the diversity and the pluralism within the town and its extensive hinterland because it is the only school of its type for many miles around.

It is my understanding that all of the schools were in demand in Trim. There has not been pressure on school numbers in the schools in Trim. Because it is a growing town, it is expected that capacity will soon run out. Yet when I asked a parliamentary question with regard to this, I learned that the decision was based on the view that there must be adherence to the balance of pupil numbers in other schools. That is a major difficulty. In fact, I believe that the source of this particular problem is a decision by the Department not to fund the necessary provisions for these five schools, especially the school in Trim.

If one considers the current situation in Trim, the school is operating in a former golf club building. It has a small sliver of grass for the kids to play on. They also play in the car park of the school. As demand is rising, the school has applied for two prefabs to be added. However, when set up, those two prefabs will eat into the kids' play area significantly. Despite all of this, demand is still rising and if the Minister does not implement his ban on bringing a full class into the school, those prefabs will be full.

What went wrong here? Why did the Department not follow through on its promise to provide proper facilities and resources for the school, and when will that happen?

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Tóibín for raising this because it is an issue that needs some understanding. The background to this issue is that in 2012, a group was formed to examine patronage. It recommended that the demand for patronage diversity should be met in areas of stable population by divesting patronage of existing schools where there was evidence of parental demand for change. This was a process of divesting patronage. As a result, surveys took place in 43 areas of stable growth. The demand was identified in 28 of those, including Trim. Trim Educate Together national school, ETNS, was established as a four-classroom school. This had its origins in a report on pilot surveys, which indicated that at least half a single-stream school, comprising four classrooms, was required to accommodate parental demand in the area.

Under the patronage divesting process, a school could be opened where a school building became or was due to become available as a result of amalgamation or closure of an existing school. That was the context in which this was to be done. In some areas, in responding to demand for diversity where existing patrons were unable to make school properties available, the Department also included an examination of properties held in public ownership. In the case of Trim ETNS, a property is being made available under the redress scheme. This will be refurbished to provide four classrooms and ancillary accommodation for the school.

All schools, irrespective of their location, have to operate within their available accommodation and manage annual pupil intake accordingly. The initial establishment of Trim ETNS as a four-classroom school, and the need to be cognisant of managing the available accommodation, has been reflected in the Department's engagement with the patron body, which is Educate Together. When the school raised the issue of expanding its enrolment, my Department invited Educate Together to submit a case for this to the Department. A case has been submitted by Educate together to further expand Trim Educate Together national school and four other schools under the patronage of Educate Together which opened under the same patronage divestment process. The four schools concerned are located in New Ross, Castlebar, Tuam and Tramore. These proposals are currently under consideration.

My Department is also carrying out a nationwide demographic exercise at primary and post-primary levels to identify the areas of demographic growth and determine where additional school accommodation is needed to plan for school provision nationwide. This work is almost complete. In this context, the outcome of the nationwide demographic exercise will provide input into consideration of the case submitted by Educate Together.

In response to the Deputy's rightful concern that the divestment process has been proceeding very slowly, I note that I am instituting a new patronage reconfiguration process. It is hoped this will accelerate the delivery of multidenominational and non-denominational schools to reach the target of 400 by 2030. Unlike the previous process, this plan will focus on live transfers in order that a school which transfers under this process will not be reliant on temporary accommodation. This new process aims to speed up matters. Deputy Tóibín rightly noted that Trim is a growing area and obviously, the demographic assessment will have to determine whether that is creating a demand for additional space. I reiterate we are evaluating the request by Educate Together.

To put this in a broader context, where one school in an area is very popular and another is not so popular, we do not fund the expansion of the popular school when the less popular one has a lot of empty places. That has been a general policy position. It is where there is need for spaces that we make provision for a new school. The Deputy will know that every single primary school that has been sanctioned in recent times has gone to a non-denominational patron. That is the model within which this has been carried out. We are hoping that the new patronage approach will speed this up because, as Deputy Tóibín says, there is an expressed willingness on all sides to see the transfer of patronage. Making that happen is the challenge.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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There is some confusion here. Obviously the decision was made to create diversity in the town of Trim with the addition of another option for parents and children. Some level of demographic research must have informed that decision. The Minister mentions the idea of demographic research as though it is a new thing. He speaks as though it struck the Department in the last few weeks that it must be done. Demographic research is carried out within the Department on an ongoing basis. For the Government to decide to set up a school on the basis of no demographic research is a nonsense. Of course the school was set up on the basis of demographic projections into the future.

There is a further difficulty here because in all the conversations the school, the board of management, the principals and Educate Together have had with the Department, it was never discussed that there would be a half-stream limit on the school or that there would not be a normal stream within the school.

The Minister said that the school is applying for additional enrolment but it is not. The school is looking to enrol a new stream every year. There is no change in its approach.

Let us call a spade a spade. This half-assed decision to force a half stream cap on the school is based on funding decisions made within the Department. The Minister is correct that a school building was divested on Patrick Street, Trim, to be made available for Educate Together, but, as late as last year, the Department was saying plans were ready to kick in for the refurbishment of that building to make it accessible to the school. If the school is set up and the resources for it to function are provided, that cannot be that difficult.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The school was identified in an area where there was not demographic pressure. These specific areas did not face demographic pressure and the idea was to divest an existing school through an amalgamation, with a transfer to a new patron. That was the context in which this project was developed; it was not included in the expanding areas, in which case all new schools are entirely non-denominational. Thirty have gone non-denominational in the past few years. This project was being done in the context of the divesting of an existing school to facilitate a new patron. The current school was established as a four-classroom building. St. Mary's does not have enough accommodation for an eight-classroom building. The refurbishment is being done in the context of a four-classroom building, which would not meet the needs of an eight-classroom school. However, I understand that what has happened is that there is more demand to enrol in the school than would be met by a four-classroom building. The demand for additional places will have to be assessed by the Department.

We will examine the demographics to establish where there is now a demographic pressure that was not there at the time the project was approved. We will also examine the case being made by Educate Together. This is not a case of someone trying to pull the rug from under someone else. The project was developed in a particular context and the weakness of that process is evident. It required closures and amalgamations to trigger it and it has not produced a flow. We are now trying a different approach involving the live transfer of a school in total to a new patron, which does not require divestiture, closure or sale or acquisition of property. That is the process for the longer term patronage diversification that we are trying to pursue but I will consider the issue raised by the Deputy.