Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Question 208: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the plans she has for students that cannot attend a school (details supplied) who are outside the catchment area; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7107/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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For the purposes of post-primary education provision, the country is divided into catchment areas, each of which has its own post-primary education centre. The catchment boundaries were determined following consultation with local educational interests, and the intention was that certain primary schools would feed exclusively into each centre. My Department provides accommodation to meet the educational needs of an area on that basis.

Allowing pupils from outside a catchment area to enrol in a particular school can impact negatively on those who reside within the area and who are entitled to a place. It invariably also impacts negatively on the school or schools which those pupils should rightly attend and in which considerable capital investment has been made for that purpose. It is a matter for all school authorities, in the context of their enrolment policies, to limit enrolment to within their catchment area to ensure that this situation does not arise. A school authority may offer places to pupils from outside the catchment area only it does not have repercussions for additional accommodation.

The pupils to which the Deputy refers are within the Kilmuckridge, Carnew and Arklow catchment areas. Those catchment areas have a total of five post-primary schools between them. An examination of enrolment trends in these schools has been carried out by the school planning section for the purposes of ensuring that there is sufficient accommodation to cater for demand for pupil places. That examination revealed that enrolments in all five schools have dropped, in some cases quite dramatically, in the past ten years. In the circumstances, school planning section is satisfied that there is ample accommodation for the pupils in question to attend post-primary schools in their own catchment areas.

Where a board of management of one of those schools or a person acting on behalf of the board has refused to enrol a student, section 29 of the Education Act 1998 provides parents with an appeal process to the Secretary General of my Department. Where an appeal under section 29 is upheld, the Secretary General may direct a school to enrol a pupil.