Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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122. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills her Department's plans to develop and implement a nationwide common application system for school admissions, in order to streamline the process for parents; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40725/26]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Demographic shifts and increasing demand for special class provision for students with special educational needs have placed growing pressure on school admissions processes across the country. Complexities in the admissions process can cause unnecessary stress for families and place a significant administrative burden on schools.

In response to these challenges and a commitment in the Programme for Government to reforming the admissions process, my Department is working towards a nationwide common application system.

As a first step, the Apply to School pilot scheme was launched in October 2025 for the 2026/2027 admissions cycle. The pilot was introduced for 15 post-primary schools in five school planning areas namely Athenry, Celbridge, Clonakilty, Greystones, and Tullamore_Killina.

The rollout of the pilot Apply to School system for schools represents a significant step towards improving the school admissions system. It provided families with a single online application process and introduced synchronised and streamlined timelines for schools to manage admissions and issue offers.

Detailed post-project evaluations with the schools who participated in the pilot have subsequently been completed. Apply to School received very positive feedback, obtaining an 80% customer effort score and contained some helpful recommendations around the direction of travel for increased system functionality. The feedback received from parents and schools has been carefully considered and forms a useful context for ongoing discussion with stakeholders. Practical suggestions are being integrated into the expanded pilot which will go live on 1 October 2026. The Apply to School pilot focused on achieving simple efficiencies within a short timeframe for delivery and the expanded pilot will build on this. The planned improvements in the functionality of the system reflects collaborative effort to imbed lessons learned and aims to further enhance the potential of the system to ease the administrative burden on both parents and schools. Furthermore, the pilot will be expanded to ten school planning areas by adding a new adjacent area to each of the original five areas.

I can assure the Deputy that my Department will continue to work closely with, and support all key stakeholders involved.