Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 1 March 2017
60. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will reconsider the proposed divestment process and establish an independent working group with representatives of all the patron bodies to formulate a transparent process that puts parents' wishes at the centre; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10456/17]
View answerAs the Deputy will be aware, I recently announced new plans aimed at providing more multi-denominational and non-denominational schools across the country, in line with the choices of families and school communities and the Programme for Government commitment in this area. This initiative has been designed to put parents and their views at the centre of the process. This will be achieved by surveying the views of parents at the beginning of the process and through a very substantial level of consultation with local community and school interests where an existing patron is proposing to transfer patronage of an existing school to an alternative patron body.
In devising this roadmap to accelerate the transfer of patronage in order to increase the number of non-denominational and multi-denominational schools, I propose to concentrate on the reconfiguration of existing school provision. By this I mean facilitating voluntary transfers of existing schools to alternative, non-denominational or multi-denominational patrons in areas which demonstrate a demand.
This will involve the Education and Training Boards in the initial phase, as the State’s local education authorities, identifying areas where there is likely to be demand for greater diversity and they will work with pre-school services to establish evidence of this demand among the cohort of pre-school parents. There will then be discussions between individual ETBs and the existing patrons/landowners concerning the possible transfer of schools to accommodate this demonstrated demand for diversity.
Each ETB will then prepare a report for the Department outlining the levels of demand within their functional areas and the responses of the existing patrons as to how this might be accommodated through the reconfiguration of existing school provision.
In the subsequent implementation phase, where the level of demand for multi-denominational schools is sufficient to justify transfer of a school from denominational to multi-denominational patronage, a process will commence to give effect to that. There will be a role for the existing patron/landowner in consulting with local community and school interests and taking into account proposals from different prospective multi-denominational patrons. It is envisaged that transfers will largely be by way of voluntary transfer of live schools by existing patrons.
This new process for supporting transfers of schools to multi-denominational patrons in response to the wishes of local families is based around principles of transparency and cooperation. Therefore, there will be a very substantial level of consultation of local communities in the process, both with the ETBs in the initial phase to establish evidence of demand by consulting pre-school parents and subsequently through the requirement for the existing patron to consult with local community and school interests in proposing to transfer patronage of an existing school to an alternative patron body. In that process, the existing patron will also take into account proposals from all prospective multi-denominational patrons that wish to be considered.
It is important to respect the voluntary nature of these transfers, given that the current patron is in most cases owner of the land on which the school stands. My Department will develop protocols on patronage transfer with existing patrons to ensure that school and local communities and prospective patrons are fully consulted before a decision is made. I am confident that this process will respect the views of all parties - parents, local schools and communities and patrons. I anticipate full co-operation from all parties.
