Education has a key role to play in the integration of foreign families into Irish life. That is why events in Balbriggan, Co Dublin, and elsewhere this week are so important: they demonstrate a State struggling to meet the challenge posed by rapid social change. Immigrant parents found their children locked out of schools because of pressure on school places.
In a disturbing example of ghettoisation, 70 parents - all of black African origin - gathered to try to cope with the crisis. All of this raises the spectre of a two-tier primary education system, one for native Irish and the other for children of immigrants. The challenge is to make sure this does not happen. The State cannot advance a policy of integration if education is segregated.
There are many who must shoulder blame for the events in Balbriggan and other areas around Dublin's outer rim. It was grossly irresponsible of the local council to move large numbers of families into Balbriggan with scant regard for educational provision. Would they show the same disregard for water, electricity or other services?
The Department of Education cannot be absolved of blame. After decades in which it abdicated responsibility for school planning to the Catholic Church and other bodies, it has been slow to readjust to new circumstances.
Despite the influx of immigrants from different religious backgrounds, the State has yet to provide an alternative to a school management system still largely controlled by the Catholic Church. Tentative moves to establish State-run primary schools have begun but the opening of the first such school at Diswellstown, west Dublin, is some years away. The true scale of the failure was underlined by the Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin when he acknowledged how the Catholic Church is actually over-represented in school management, given its current numbers in Dublin. This is a welcome and pragmatic new policy being adopted by the Catholic Church in a State where, for so long, education has been provided largely by the Catholic Church.
There has been criticism of the church's enrolment policies - especially an insistence on Baptismal certs - which tends to work against foreign nationals. In an interview published in yesterday's editions, Dr Martin delivered a robust and challenging defence. He said that half of the junior infants in the Catholic school in Balbriggan are children of immigrants, while Catholic schools generally have been to the fore in providing primary education for foreign nationals. The Catholic Church has had to deal with the consequences of failures by others. It should not be blamed for the crisis.
Dr Martin has sought to launch a debate on a new education landscape with what he terms "a plurality of patronage and providers of education". It is a challenge which policymakers must meet if current mistakes are not to be repeated.