Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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82. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the criteria by which the schools reconfiguration for diversity process will assess the demand for school patronage; and the criteria by which the demand for Gaelscoileanna will be assessed. [26000/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, in January, 2017, I announced new plans aimed at providing more multi-denominational and non-denominational schools across the country, in line with the choices of parents, families and school communities and the Programme for Government commitment of reaching 400 such schools by 2030.

The Schools Reconfiguration for Diversity process involves the Education and Training Boards (ETBs) in the initial phase, as the State’s local education authorities, identifying areas where there is likely to be demand for greater diversity of school patronage and working with local City/County Childcare Committees to establish evidence of this demand among the cohort of pre-school parents.

As part of this process, surveys of the parents of pre-school children commenced from 24th May 2018 in 16 areas across the country.

ETBs will analyse the survey results and determine the extent of demand for multi-denominational or non-denominational education in each area, including the demand for a multi- or non-denominational Gaelscoil. This will form the basis of discussions with the majority patron (the Catholic Bishop in most cases) concerning the transfer of patronage of an existing school to meet that demand. Each ETB will then draw up a comprehensive report on the position in relation to each of the 16 pilot areas for submission to the Department of Education and Skills, which will subsequently publish the reports.

It is planned that, following the publication of the reports, the Schools Reconfiguration for Diversity process will move into the Implementation Phase, involving existing patrons consulting with their local school communities on accommodating the demand for diversity by transferring patronage of an existing school to a new multi-/non-denominational patron.

The new process supporting transfers of schools to multi-denominational patrons in response to the wishes of local families is based around principles of transparency and cooperation. Therefore, there will be a very substantial level of consultation of local communities in the process, both with the ETBs in the initial phase to establish evidence of demand by consulting pre-school parents and subsequently through the requirement for the existing patron to consult with local community and school interests in proposing to transfer patronage of an existing school to an alternative patron body, in either language medium. In that process, proposals from all prospective multi-denominational patrons that wish to be considered will be taken into account.