Oversubscribed Catholic schools in Ireland will be forbidden from selecting pupils based on their faith under new measures signed into law this week.
Richard Bruton, the former education minister, newly appointed as minister for communications, climate action and environment, signed the commencement order on legislative provisions that prevents Catholic schools from giving enrolment priority to baptised children.
From next year, under the School Admissions Act, oversubscribed Catholic schools will no longer be able to use religion as a selection criterion in admissions.
Mr Bruton said removing religion as a factor in admissions would ensure greater fairness. “This hugely important law will make it easier for parents in the future to more easily access local schools and to enrol their children in a school that meets their needs,” he said. Seamus Mulconry, secretary general of the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association (CPSMA), told The Tablet that the legislation “will not add a single school space”.
“There are huge swathes of the country where there are no oversubscribed schools, and there are also many schools which, prior to this legislation, did not use religion in their admissions criteria anyway,” he explained. He said that resources, not religion, was the real issue and responsibility for the provision of adequate school places was the responsibility of the Department of Education.
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