Agreement on picking locations for school choice

PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE DEPARTMENT of Education is to establish where in Ireland choice in the provision of primary schools in terms of ethos may be required.

This was agreed at a meeting attended by representatives of Catholic school patrons and department officials at its offices on Dublin’s Marlborough Street yesterday. There was also discussion on underprovision of Catholic-run secondary schools.

A joint statement afterwards described the meeting as “wide-ranging and constructive”.

Speaking after the meeting, Bishop Leo O’Reilly, chairman of the Irish Bishops’ Conference Commission on Education, said church representatives had, in discussion, “emphasised strongly” the role of parents and “respect for parental choice” in the provision of a diverse range of schools.

He also said that the bishops were committed to providing a Catholic education where it was wanted. “They also respect diversity,” and the need to provide for it, he said.

All stakeholders should be taken into account, he said, “parents, pupils, teachers, the local community, all have to be engaged”. It was a process and wouldn’t happen overnight, but both sides were committed to dealing with it “as quickly as we can”, he said.

The church had received no application from any of its schools to change patronage, he said. Nor was he aware of any Catholic school which might be seeking such change, he said. The church controls more than 92 per cent of primary schools (3,000 of the total of 3,200) in the State.

At second level there was “a fair diversity of provision there” but he was concerned at the “underprovision of new Catholic voluntary secondary schools” over recent years. There were, he felt, “no clear criteria I am aware of, where the department is concerned, for evaluating what the demand is [for particular choice at second level].”

• The Iona Institute called on the Department of Education yesterday “to respect the principle of parental choice in any talks about the future of denominational schools in Ireland”.