Just nine pupils are enrolled in school after transfer of patronage

A Kerry school has enrolled just nine pupils after a patronage transfer from the Catholic bishop to the local education and training board.

The viability of Two Mile School outside Killarney was at risk and it did not re-open at all during the last school year. No parents sent their children back to the school in September 2016, and numbers had dropped to just 17 in the previous school year.

Education Minister Richard Bruton said its redesignation as a multi-denominational community national school was the first example of a new way of increasing diversity in primary school provision.