Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Ó Ríordáin for raising this issue as a Commencement matter. Unfortunately, the Minister, Deputy Bruton, is not available today. I am informed by his office that he was available on Tuesday and Wednesday and that he has debated this matter in this House and in the Dáil this week. I disagree fundamentally with the Senator's views on the Minister, Deputy Bruton, who is the first member of the Fine Gael Party to hold the senior education Ministry since the late 1980s and is very progressive in his outlook on the whole area of education.As the Senator is no doubt aware, the 2012 report of the advisory group to the forum on patronage and pluralism in the primary sector recommended that demand for patronage diversity should be met in areas of stable population by divesting patronage of existing schools where there is evidence of parental demand for change. In this context, in 2012-2013, the Department undertook surveys of parental preferences in 43 areas of stable population to establish the level of demand for a wider choice in the patronage of primary schools. These areas were all stable in terms of population growth, so no new school places were required.

The establishment and size of the schools indicated by the Senator have origins in the report on the pilot surveys regarding parental preferences on primary school patronage and the report on the surveys regarding parental preferences on primary school, which indicated a size of at least half a single-stream school, comprising four classrooms, being required to accommodate parental demand in the case of Tramore and Trim and up to four classrooms in the case of New Ross and Tuam.

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 an amalgamation or closure of an existing school. In some areas, in responding to demand for diversity where existing patrons were unable make school properties available, the Department included an examination of properties held in public ownership. All schools, irrespective of their location, have to operate within their available accommodation and manage annual pupil intake accordingly. The initial establishment of the indicated schools as four-classroom schools and the need to be cognisant of managing the available accommodation has been reflected in the Department's engagement with the patron body of these schools, Educate Together.

When one of the schools raised the issue of expanding its enrolment, the Department invited Educate Together to submit a case to it in this regard. A case has been submitted by Educate Together to further expand five schools under its patronage that opened under the patronage divesting process. These are the Educate Together national schools in Castlebar, New Ross, Tramore, Trim and Tuam. The case is under consideration.

The Department is carrying out nationwide demographic exercises at primary and post-primary levels to identify areas of demographic growth and determine where additional school accommodation is needed in order to plan for school provision nationwide, and this work is almost complete. In this context, the outcome of the nationwide demographic exercises will have an input into the consideration of the case submitted by Educate Together. In addition, the Minister has announced a new patronage reconfiguration process, which will accelerate the delivery of multidenominational and non-denominational schools, to reach 400 such schools by 2030.

There have been previous efforts at transferring patronage but we must be honest and admit they have not worked. Only ten schools transferred to multidenominational patronage as a result of the previous process set up by the former Minister, Ruairí Quinn, in 2012. The figure is lower than was hoped for. The new process is designed to build on the lessons learned from the previous process and deliver more multidenominational and non-denominational schools, and that is what we believe it will do. Unlike the previous process, this plan will focus on live transfers so that a school that transfers under the new process will not be reliant on temporary accommodation.