Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have discussed this on Second Stage and on Committee Stage. Schools as of now are allowed to operate their own admissions policy. They have been allowed up to now to have waiting lists, to allow unrestricted preference for preschools, feeder schools, siblings, past pupils, religion. In all of these cases I am introducing restrictions where I feel they are appropriate. We will continue to allow feeder schools and sibling preference to apply.

In the case of past pupils, we are introducing for the first time a cap on the extent to which priority can be given to past pupils in gaining access to the school. This will apply to all schools. The history behind this is that the then Minister, Ruairí Quinn, proposed 25% which is in this Bill as being the appropriate restriction. Subsequently, I understand that the then Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, reduced that to 10%. I thought in approaching this to get consensus on it and consensus emerged around the 25%, the original proposal made by Ruairí Quinn.

The counterargument is that schools are communities and that there is a value in having continuity around the community and building a connection between one generation and the next. That does help schools to be stronger. We have to decide when we believe it is appropriate to intervene and to what extent, and we have decided to intervene to ban in their entirety waiting lists, to ban religion in 95% of schools, to ban in its entirety access through preschools but to allow the continuation of access through feeder schools. We just discussed an amendment on that issue in respect of Gaelscoileanna. This is a question of striking a balance in what should be permitted and what caps we should impose. This measure imposes a cap where none applied. It is appropriate. This is a fair and balanced approach. Having listened to all the arguments, this is introducing a restriction which is appropriate. Therefore I do not support the amendment.