Minister 'confident' school place will be found for 26 Limerick pupils without offer
Minister for Education Norma Foley TD.
There is a school in a position to “make provision” for the 26 Limerick pupils who did not receive an offer of a secondary school place for the next academic year, Norma Foley has said.
The Minister for Education told the Dáil that principals on the ground are “confident that the 26 cases will be provided for in terms of students accepting or refusing cases going forward”.
“There will be a provision for those 26 places in the existing accommodation but, if not, there is capacity to provide it,” Ms Foley said.
The Limerick students had applied for places through the system used in the county for secondary school places.
Under the Common Application System in Limerick, all secondary schools in Limerick City, Croom, and Pallaskenry make their offers together, with offers made to students for the schools on Wednesday. However, 26 students were not offered a place in any of the schools under the system.
Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea had said he was contacted on Wednesday morning by parents devastated that their children had not secured a place in a secondary school.
The issue was raised in the Dáil by Green Party TD Brian Leddin, who said he acknowledged the Limerick and Clare Education and Training Board (LCETB) and the department minister’s efforts to resolve the issue. He also asked Ms Foley to outline plans for new schools in Limerick city with an expected large growth in population in the coming years.
Ms Foley said that the projected population increase in Limerick is being considered in the context of school places “with a view to identifying any further accommodation solutions to meet the capacity requirements”.
“I do want to underline that considerable investment has actually gone into Limerick city,” she said, adding there are currently 32 school projects underway in the area.
“And the Department will continue to work to advance the plans and current projects in Limerick city.”
Separately, Sinn Féin education spokesperson Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire highlighted how children in a number of areas don’t have a place at a special school identified for the coming September.
“I know families in my own area, in Dublin and in Athlone, who don’t have a place as it stands,” he said.
“We need to be talking about this now, not in May or June.”
In response, Junior Minister Josepha Madigan said the Government had brought forward a number of initiatives to provide for sufficient school places which were “bearing fruit”.
She said that 65 new special classes had been delivered in Cork and 94 in Dublin with a focus on urban areas “where demand is highest”.
Ms Madigan said that the National Council for Special Education was collaborating with schools in this matter.
“Once the child is known to the NCSE, there should be no reason why we don’t have an appropriate place for that child,” she said.
In response to a later question from Fianna Fáil’s Padraig O’Sullivan, Ms Madigan added: “There’s extremely intense engagement going on with a lot of the special schools at present in terms of providing additional capacity.”
