Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. I have been asked by Councillor Rory O'Connor of Wicklow County Council to raise this important issue with the Minister on behalf of the parents and staff of St. Andrew's national school in Bray.

As the Minister may be aware, St. Andrew's national school is a fantastic school with a long and impressive history, having been founded in 1888 under the patronage of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. It has undergone many changes, funded for the most part by the generosity of the Church of Ireland and Presbyterian communities in Bray. Over the years, it has expanded to include pupils from the Methodist Church.

St. Andrew's national school is unique as it was the first, and remains the only, school in Ireland to be shared by three churches. This arrangement has worked very well and is mutually beneficial, with all three churches playing an active role in the life of the school. The board of trustees comprises representatives of all three churches and the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin is the school's patron. The ethos of the school is inclusive in nature and it welcomes everybody equally. The problem now facing the school is that there is no feeder status for St. Andrew's national school to any school in the area with the same ethos. As we know, Article 44 of the Constitution confers freedom to practice one's religion and State aid for schools. Schools cannot discriminate between different religions and denominations and parents of minority faiths have a right to send their children to schools of their ethos and values.

I have been told that currently some of the pupils in sixth class in St. Andrew's national school still have no places allocated to them for next year. The transition to secondary school is challenging enough for young people and their parents, without the added impediment of there being no school available with their religious ethos. For example, pupils from St. Andrew's have no category 1 access to any school in Bray. Newpark Comprehensive School is the closest to St. Andrew's but it is still some distance away and over-subscribed. Outside of Newpark Comprehensive School there is little choice for parents unless they have the means to pay extremely high fees to other schools which are not close to Bray. The options could not be more limited. Parents with children in St. Andrew's national school find themselves in a unique and, frankly, worrying situation. In Bray, there are barriers to their children accessing places in schools of other faiths. For example, to gain admission to the Presentation College, Bray, category 1, a child needs to have a parent who is a past pupil or a sibling who attended.Loreto school is fed into St. Patrick's school first. St. Andrew's school worked tirelessly 25 or 30 years ago to get East Glendalough school in Wicklow up and running, only to be told St. Andrew's is not in the school's catchment area. Indeed, I represented East Glendalough school in my time in the Teachers Union of Ireland, TUI.

In 2011, the school began a campaign to build a school such as East Glendalough school in Bray, but was told it could only bid for the proposed school in Greystones. The school was initially assured that the new school would be regional rather than local. It entered the bidding process and again received verbal assurances that the catchment area would be regional. However, it was subsequently informed it would be a local school for local children, leaving a considerable number of pupils outside the catchment area. One possible solution is Temple Carrig school, which is only five minutes up the road and is the only nearby school in Wicklow of a similar ethos. Will the Minister give serious consideration to giving feeder status to Temple Carrig school for all St. Andrew's pupils?

I understand a new secondary school is being fast-tracked to open next year with capacity for 1,000 pupils. St. David's Holy Faith secondary school is getting an extension in February 2020 to bring its capacity to 750 and Temple Carrig school is seeking an extension to accommodate 1,000 students. For St. Andrew's students to access places in Temple Carrig school the school places would have to be ring-fenced and St. Andrew's assigned category 1 feeder school status. I hope the Minister will have good news today for the pupils, staff and parents in St. Andrew's in Bray, who deeply need a school that shares their ethos within a reasonable distance of pupils' homes. I thank the Minister for taking this matter today and for his attendance in the House. I look forward to his response.