Parents urged to notify schools of future enrolments

THE Department of Education will provide temporary accommodation for schools enrolling new pupils during the school year in a growing Kildare town but parents must notify schools in advance of their arrival, Education Minister Mary Hanafin said yesterday.

She was responding to concerns about the refusal of enrolment for around 20 pupils whose families have moved to Newbridge in recent months to find a shortage of space in local primary schools.

The town’s nine Catholic schools are understood to be full to capacity and at least two dozen more children may be seeking enrolment soon.

Ms Hanafin said part of the problem was that schools had no prior notification of new children arriving.

“These are now parents who are moving mid-term, who obviously haven’t given any advance notice to the local schools. What I’m saying is if you do intend to move to Newbridge over the next couple of months, can you please notify the schools immediately,” she said.

“If you do that, then if necessary we and they can apply for temporary accommodation. Unfortunately, even temporary accommodation requires planning permission,” Ms Hanafin said on RTÉ radio.

She said that objections can further delay planning for accommodation but that her department will respond very quickly if it knows how many to expect.

“The difficulty seems to be in Newbridge, we knew who to expect at the beginning of the school year, unfortunately the schools don’t know who to expect in the middle of the year,” she said.

She rejected claims that the Department of Education ignored warnings of a looming schools crisis four years ago, as sanction had been given for a new Catholic primary school which has had difficulty acquiring a suitable site.

Fine Gael education spokeswoman Olwyn Enright accused the Department of Education of being unprepared for the school capacity needed in numerous areas of population growth, despite setting up a Commission on School Accommodation to plan for such matters.

She did not accept that schools would be surprised by enrolment applications by people after classes begin in September.

“We know the position in Newbridge. We know there are houses being built out there and people are moving out from Dublin and when this problem was being looked at earlier in the year for September, there should be at least a small amount of extra places,” she said.

Ms Hanafin’s officials have asked the Department of the Environment to examine ways of having developers set aside sites for future school needs where developers apply to build large housing estates.