Noonan in clash with Hanafin over placement system

FINE GAEL’S Michael Noonan has clashed with Education Minister Mary Hanafin over the secondary school placement system in Limerick.

He accused her of washing her hands of a system brought in at the insistence of her predecessor, Noel Dempsey, as Ms Hanafin told parents whose children did not get placed in secondary schools of their choice not to give up hope.

Ms Hanafin said an appeals mechanism is in place and parents unhappy with the school offered should take this up with the schools which rejected their applications for placement.

However, Mr Noonan has accused the minister of engaging in “typical Fianna Fáil” politics on the placement issue.

Mr Noonan said that Ms Hanafin has washed her hands of the scheme even though it was put in place at the insistence of her predecessor, Noel Dempsey.

The system was drawn up in a CAO-type format with first round and subsequent offers of places in Limerick’s 15 secondary schools.

When the first round offers were sent out, 87 children were not offered any place and had to wait for the second round offers last week to find out if they got a place.

Mr Noonan, a former secondary teacher said: “even though all have now been offered places, it is difficult to see why this matter could not have been resolved without traumatising so many children by making them feel rejected in their first application of selecting five choice schools and at the same time making them feel that nobody wanted them.”

Ms Hanafin said that Mr Noonan was incorrect in stating that the new scheme to allocate places had been negotiated by Mr Dempsey.

“Following difficulties that arose in Limerick around the placement of pupils in second level schools in 2004, the then minister convened a meeting of all the schools involved and received a commitment that the schools would seek to resolve the issues by co-operating with one another for the 2005/’06 school year.

“The centralised application system was agreed between the principals of the post primary schools in the area,” she said.

She said the Limerick Education Centre agreed to administer the centralised application system on behalf of the post primary schools.