Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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166. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the position regarding school places (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13602/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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It is the responsibility of the managerial authorities of all schools to implement an enrolment policy in accordance with the Education Act, 1998. The enrolment policy must be non-discriminatory and must be applied fairly in respect of all applicants.

This Department's main responsibility is to ensure that schools in an area can, between them, cater for all pupils seeking school places in the area. Parents can choose which school to apply to and where the school has places available the pupil should be admitted. However, in schools where there are more applicants than places available a selection process may be necessary. This selection process and the enrolment policy on which it is based must be non-discriminatory and must be applied fairly in respect of all applicants. However, this may result in some pupils not obtaining a place in the school of their first choice.

Existing equality legislation, which outlaws discrimination in relation to the admission of a student, makes provision for exemptions to apply in the case of single sex schools and in the case of schools where the objective is to provide education in an environment that promotes certain religious values.

The Equality legislation provides that any primary or post primary school that has this objective may, where it has more applicants than places available, admit a student of a particular religious denomination in preference to other students.

The legislation also provides that a school whose objective is to provide education in an environment that promotes certain religious values can refuse to admit a student who is not of that religion only where the school proves that this refusal is essential to maintain the ethos of the school.

Section 29 of the Education Act, 1998 provides for an appeal by a parent or guardian to the Secretary General of my Department, or in the case of an Educational Training Board (ETB) school to the ETB in the first instance, where a Board of Management of a school, or a person acting on behalf of the Board, refuses to enrol a student in a school, expels a student or suspends a student for 20 or more days in any school year.

The Educational Welfare Service of the Child and Family Agency (EWS) is the statutory agency which can assist parents who are experiencing difficulty in securing a school place for their child. The EWS can be contacted at 01-8738700.

The Deputy will be aware that Government gave approval in March last year for drafting the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill. The Bill is on the Government legislative programme for publication in the Spring/Summer session.

The objective of the Admissions to School Bill is to provide an over-arching framework to ensure that how schools decide on who is enrolled and who is refused a place in schools is more structured, fair and transparent. The framework proposes new powers for the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) and the Child and Family Agency to designate a school place for those children who cannot get any school place.

The draft Bill does not propose changes to the existing equality legislation. However, the draft Bill will provide for schools to explicitly state in the school's admission policy that it will not discriminate against an applicant for admission on the grounds of disability, special educational needs, sexual orientation, family status, membership of the traveller community, race, civil status, gender or religion.

The draft Bill will also provide for schools to publish an enrolment policy which will include details of the school's arrangements for students who do not want to attend religious instruction.