Quinn rejects advice on patronage of two primary schools

Ruairi Quinn, the education minister, has rejected the advice of his officials and independent experts to decide who will be patron of two new primary schools.

Parental demand was very similar for both the local Vocational Education Committee (VEC) and multi-denominational schools group Educate Together in relation to proposed schools in Kildare town and Mallow, Co Cork, due to open this year and next year, respectively.

A month ago, Department of Education officials recommended that the group likely to have more interest over the first two years of operation should be made patron.

Their view was expressed to the New Schools Establishment Group, an independent body appointed by the minister to assess applications for patronage of 20 new schools to be set up by 2017 in areas of population growth.

However, despite its Feb 26 report to Mr Quinn recommending Co Kildare VEC as the patron for the Kildare school and recommending Educate Together as patron of the Mallow school, he has gone against their proposals.

Instead, he announced yesterday that Educate Together would be patron of the Kildare school and the Mallow school would be under the patronage of Co Cork VEC.

He accepted the group’s recommendation in relation to four schools due to open in Dublin this year, meaning three will be under the patronage of Educate Together and another under Co Dublin VEC.

Co Dublin VEC will be patron to two further Dublin schools planned to open next year in Tallaght and Lucan. Educate Together will be patron to three new schools in 2013, in Firhouse/Oldbawn and Carpenterstown in Dublin and in the Douglas/ Rochestown area of Cork.

Mr Quinn has also approved all-Irish schools to be under the patronage of An Foras Pátrúnachta in Firhouse/Oldbawn and Stepaside in Dublin.

The planned opening in 2013 of a new primary school in Glanmire on the northern outskirts of Cork, where Co Cork VEC and Educate Together applied to be patron, has been deferred for at least a year after assessment of local demand suggested insufficient numbers for a junior infant class next year.

The decision to overrule two recommendations in relation to patronage in Kildare and Mallow comes in spite of Mr Quinn’s statement yesterday that he was placing a particular emphasis on providing for a demonstrated parental demand for plurality and diversity of patronage.

Educate Together said that it noted the decision regarding Mallow and Kildare, but welcomed the decisions in relation to the eight new schools it would now open in 2012 and 2013.