Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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143. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the catchment area of a school (details supplied); and the school that residents of Ardmore Hills are in the catchment area of. [45710/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Under the Education Act 1998, the question of enrolment policy in individual schools, including the setting of catchment areas, is the responsibility of the board of management on behalf of the school patron. The 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. The Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018 requires schools to clearly set out their selection criteria in their admission policies. Schools have discretion in relation to their admission criteria and how they are applied. Living in a particular catchment area is one criteria that a school may apply. The criteria to be applied by schools and the order of priority are a matter for the schools themselves. My department does not intervene in the criteria set by a school.

My 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.

In order to plan for school provision and analyse the relevant demographic data, my department divides the country into 314 school planning areas and uses a geographical information system, using data from a range of sources, including CSO census data, child benefit and school enrolment data, to identify where the pressure for school places across the country will arise and where additional school accommodation is needed at primary and post-primary level.

Major new residential developments have the potential to alter the demand for school places at a local level. In that regard, as part of the demographic demand analysis, my department monitors planning and construction activity in the residential sector. This involves the analysis of data sources from local authorities and the CSO along with the engagement with local authorities and the construction sector. In this way, up-to-date information on significant new residential developments is obtained and factored into the demographic analysis exercise. This is necessary to ensure that schools infrastructure planning is keeping pace with demographic changes, at a local level, where there is a constantly evolving picture with planned new residential development.

New schools established since 2011 to meet demographic demand are required, in the first instance, to prioritise pupil applications from within the designated school planning area(s) which the school was established to serve. This does not preclude schools from enrolling pupils from outside of the school planning area where they have sufficient places, rather it reflects the need to accommodate in the first instance the demographic for which the school was established.

The school planning areas provide a useful means of projecting demographic demand in a localised area or areas, thereby allowing the department to determine oncoming growth at a relatively localised level to inform recommendations and decisions on where additional school places may be needed.

However, there can be a high degree of inward and outward mobility of children between school planning areas, particularly in urban areas, and parents are free to apply to enrol their children in any school, whether that is in the school planning area in which they reside or not.

In the majority of cases the boards of management of schools do not use school planning area boundaries as part of their admissions policies, or catchment areas within those policies. However, the department wishes to be transparent on the approach taken to the analysis of demand for school places and has undertaken to make school planning area maps available. The publication of these boundaries provides this geographical information to the public on an open-source platform available at the link below.

Ardmore Hills is located in the Mullingar school planning area.

In most areas, school planning areas were based on traditional school catchment areas where all primary schools were assigned to a post-primary feeder area (typically a population centre or town), containing one or more post-primary schools. With the introduction of small areas in census 2011, these feeder areas were amended to align with census small areas. The current school planning areas take account not only of local groupings of schools, but also of natural boundaries, census small areas and other local conditions.

As stated above, the question of enrolment in individual schools, including the setting of catchment areas, is the responsibility of the board of management on behalf of the school patron and my department does not seek to intervene in decisions made by schools in such matters or have access to such maps. It is the responsibility of the managerial authorities of all schools to implement an enrolment policy in accordance with the Education Act, 1998.

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.

Further information on the Section 29 appeals process is available on my department's website www.education.ie. The Education Welfare Service (EWS) of the Child and Family Agency (Tusla) 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 01-77185.