Schools Admissions Bill will not be passed until next year says Education Minister

The Education Minister has admitted that her long-awaited overhaul of school admissions will not be passed under this government.

Jan O'Sullivan has said her Schools Admissions Bill - originally published by Ruairi Quinn two years ago - will have to wait until the next Dáil.

The bill has been criticised by the past pupils unions of some fee-paying schools, and by the Catholic Church.

But in the Dáil this morning, Minister O'Sullivan has admitted there simply is not enough time to pass it: “I would have liked to have got Dáil time and Seanad time in order to bring it through the houses of the Oireachtas, I am not kicking it to touch, if it can still be done I will do it,

“But I am being realistic in terms of the Oireachtas calendar in so far as we only have next week now in the Dáil,”