Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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54. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will intervene in the flawed process for school reconfiguration in the Raheny area and if she will restart the process with a wider consultation. [14295/23]

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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I am asking about the review of the configuration of schools in Raheny, a process that has left many people very dissatisfied. Will the Minister consider intervening in that process so that a more comprehensive view of the schooling needs in Raheny can be ascertained?

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Government’s objective is to have at least 400 multi-denominational schools in the primary system by 2030 to improve parental choice. I fully support this commitment and I am working with my Department and stakeholders in this respect. In recent years, there has been progress towards increasing the numbers of multi-denominational primary schools, with the vast majority of new primary schools established in the past decade having a multi-denominational ethos.

In March 2022, I announced that arrangements were being put in place in a number of towns and areas of cities that had no multi-denominational primary schools.

This process sought to identify potential schools and to engage with school authorities, school staff and the school communities with a view to agreeing on a transfer of patronage and change of ethos, where there was sufficient demand for this. The ongoing pilot includes 63 schools in the cities of Cork, Dublin, Galway and Limerick and the Arklow, Athlone, Dundalk and Youghal areas.

The schools reconfiguration for diversity process, supporting transfers of schools to multidenominational patrons in response to the wishes of local communities, has been developed in order to accelerate the delivery of multidenominational schools across the country. Where a school transfers from the patronage of one patron to another, the school remains open with the same roll number and operating from the same school property. All State-funded primary schools follow a common national curriculum and are subject to the same rules and regulations.

The Council for Education of the Irish Episcopal Conference and relevant bishops have confirmed their willingness to engage and co-operate fully with my Department in seeking to facilitate a more diverse school patronage in the towns and cities in the pilot. The Department has made available a number of independent facilitators, who are former senior inspectors, across the pilot areas, including Raheny, to work with the school patron and relevant school authorities at a local level. This work involves engagement with school authorities, school staff and parents with a view to agreeing on a transfer of patronage and change of ethos, where there is sufficient demand for this. This process is about providing information and engaging with, and seeking feedback from, the school community.

I have always been clear about the intention to examine anything learned from the pilot in order to inform future work. Over the next short while, my Department will pull together information on what worked well across the pilot and what could be done better. We will then work with all the relevant stakeholders to apply what has been learned to future phases of work.

In respect of engagement with the three schools in Raheny, the facilitator has completed their information meetings with the relevant boards of management, principals, staff and parents of pupils in each school. Before and after each engagement with a stakeholder, the facilitator and patron’s representative engaged to consider the views expressed and queries raised. The facilitator has submitted their preliminary report-----

Denise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein)
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We are over time.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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I am interested in hearing the rest of contribution by the Minister. She will probably conclude it in her next contribution. This is a very unsatisfactory process. It was done at the height of the Christmas period. Nobody on either side of the discussion had any faith in how the process was organised. The Minister told me at a recent meeting of the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science that potential parents would be involved in these processes. How can it be fair that somebody who has a child in sixth class in one of the schools, and who will be gone in a few months, has more of a say than a parent who might have two or three children who are not yet in school but who live in the catchment area? It is patently not fair. It has led to incredible division and an uncomfortable feeling around the whole discussion. No one on either side of the debate feels their views were heard. There is a huge amount of confusion around it.

Will the Minister start a new process? The one that was entered into by the independent facilitator has not satisfied anybody, regardless of which side of the discussion they may be.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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In respect of the engagement with the three schools in Raheny, the facilitator has completed their information meetings with the relevant boards of management, principals, staff and parents of pupils in each school. Before and after each engagement with a stakeholder, the facilitator and patron’s representative engaged to consider the views expressed and queries raised. The facilitator has submitted their preliminary report based on their engagement with the relevant stakeholders to the school patron. The preliminary report was circulated to the respective Raheny school communities for information and they were invited to provide feedback and share their views with the facilitator via the dedicated reconfiguration email address. The facilitator is now in the process of finalising their report, following consideration of feedback submitted by the school community.

After the school patron receives the facilitator’s final report, the patron can reflect on the level of demand as indicated in the report. The patron should then communicate with the schools on whether there is sufficient demand for transfer of patronage and change of ethos or whether the school community wishes to remain under Catholic church patronage.

There are 63 pilots. This is one. I fully accept that some of the pilots have worked much better than others. The process of reviewing the pilots as they have worked will be part of the undertaking of the Department. We are committed to doing that.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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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.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I want to be fair here. I know the Deputy is fully invested in this process and very supportive of increasing the number of multi-denominational schools we have. The pilot covers 63 different schools and there is no doubt that it has reaped benefits in some areas. The basis of the pilot is that everybody is consulted, and a facilitator is accommodating that, and everybody gets an opportunity to express their view. The report is then formulated at the end. I will be honest and say the process has worked better in some areas than in others. It has been protracted and challenging in some areas and less so in others. For this reason, there will be a full and comprehensive review of how the process has worked, what changes can be made and what can be retained where it worked well.

It is also important to acknowledge in this debate that of the 53 new primary schools inaugurated, 52 are multi-denominational and of the 50 new post-primary schools, 44 are multi-denominational. We are making progress. Where there have been issues with pilots, the full review will give us an opportunity to correct them in future. The pilots have been successful in some areas.