A LEGAL bid to compel the Minister for Education to consider an application aimed at allowing an all-girl primary school officially enrol boys and be officially recognised as a Gaelscoil has been dismissed at the High Court.
The Minister’s refusal to consider the application for recognition, brought by the 2004 board of management of Scoil Naomh Therese, Bishopstown, Co Cork, was challenged by former board of management members and some parents of pupils at the school.
The Minister said he could not consider the application in circumstances where the patron of the Catholic Church-owned school, the Bishop of Cork and Ross John Buckley, had not given consent for the school to operate as a co-educational school.
The High Court heard the 45-pupil school began enrolling boys in 2000 and 15 of the existing pupils are boys.
In a reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O’Neill dismissed the application for orders compelling the Minister for Education and Science, Ireland and the Attorney General to make a decision on the application for recognition as both a Gaelscoil and a co-educational school.
The judge also refused declarations that permission of the school’s patron is not a pre-condition for the recognition sought.
The judge noted that, last December, the bishop informed the chairman of the board of management that he had no objection to the school operating as a Scoil Lán Ghaelach (Gaelscoil) and was willing to allow the boys currently enrolled in the school to complete their primary education there. However, consent for a co-educational school was not given.
The proceedings arose from two applications in 2004 to the Minister for recognition as both a co-educational school and a Gaelscoil.
In 2004 the Minister said Dr Buckley had “made it very clear” in correspondence he had not given his approval and therefore a change of the school’s status could not be made.
He said the school’s status was that of an all-girl school where teaching was done through English. The school was not authorised to continue to enrol boys and was advised to discontinue this practice.
Mr Justice O’Neill found the Minister had not acted unreasonably or unlawfully by not making a determination in relation to a change of status. Any change in status could only occur if consent was granted by the patron, he said.
The judge noted it had been argued the Minister’s policy breached the parent applicants’ constitutional rights and that they were entitled to enforce their preferred status for the school.
He said that cannot be the case. The constitutional or statutory right to send a child to a school of one’s choice did not mean the school itself had to change its status to conform to that parental choice, he found.
The change being sought would fundamentally and permanently alter the nature of the school and how it is run, the judge said. In such circumstances, the consent of the bishop, as the person who has the permanent interest in the school, was appropriate.
It was “inconceivable”, the judge said, that the application for the change sought would not need that consent.
The 1998 Education Act envisaged a school’s board of management is “a derivative” of the patron and acts “as a day-to-day manager” with the school principal, he said. The patron had a permanent role in comparison to the transient nature of the various members of the board.
The court had heard the school was founded in 1980, as a primary school for girls, alongside another school, Scoil Cholumbain, for boys. In 1995, due to a decline in enrolment, the boys’ school was amalgamated with another school on a different site.
In 1995 the board applied to have the school recognised as a Gaelscoil but no decision was made. Further applications in 1998 and 1999 to allow the school become co-educational were rejected by the Minister.