Patronage of 12 new schools under consideration

The Department of Education is considering applications from eight prospective patrons for control of a dozen new schools to be opened in the next three years.

In April, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn invited interested parties to apply to be patrons of four new primary schools to be opened in September 2014.

These and all other new school proposals must be backed by evidence of parental support for the type of school being planned by applicant patrons.

The four locations of next year’s new primary schools in Cork, Dublin and Galway are among the 20 that he announced in Jun 2011 would have new schools in the coming years to cater for sharp rises in pupil numbers.

The applicants include multi-denominational patron Educate Together and the local Education and Training Boards (formerly vocational education committees), which have applied in three out of four cases.

They are the only applicants for new primary schools in the Midleton-Carrigtwohill area of east Cork, where a new second -level school to open in 2016 is also the subject of patronage applications.

The Educational Society of Ireland is seeking to be patron of both primary schools proposed to open in Dublin next year, in Swords and the Sandymount /Ringsend area of the city. It says its mission is to provide top quality education in consultation with parents, and that its members include former principals, working teachers and academics, parents and interested individuals of diverse national and ethnic origins.

Irish language schools group An Foras Pátrúnachta has also applied for patronage in Sandymount /Ringsend. Parents in the Galway suburb of Knocknacarra were also asked to support the application of Lifeways Ireland to open a Steiner school that emphasises children’s holistic development.

The eight second-level schools for which patronage applications were sought earlier this year are to open in 2016, except one in Celbridge, Co Kildare, which is set to admit its first students in 2015.

In most cases, Educate Together or the local ETB are seeking to become patron, including four where both have applied. In Celbridge and in north Wicklow, Educate Together and the Kildare and Wicklow ETB have applied separately, but have also made a joint application.

The Edmund Rice Schools Trust, with the support of Christian Brothers College in Cork City, is seeking to become patron of a proposed new second-level school in Carrigaline. The commuter town already has a new all-Irish second-level school opening next year, and a major extension is under construction at Carrigaline Community School.

Cork ETB has an application for joint patronage with the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne for the planned 2016 opening of a new second-level school in the Midleton and Carrigtwohill areas.