Five new schools given approval
March 8, 2011
Five new schools have been approved for growing populations in Dublin’s commuter belt.
Three facilities run by Educate Together and two gaelscoileanna by the Foras Patrunachta organisation are to be opened over the next two years to meet increasing demand.
There are no new Catholic schools in the list from the Department of Education.
Educate Together will open multi-denominational schools in the suburbs of Blanchardstown west and Mulhuddart this September and Ashbourne, Co Meath in 2012.
An Foras Patrunachta, which runs gaelscoileanna, will open an multi-denominational school in Ashbourne in September and another in Mulhuddart next year.
Outgoing Tanaiste Mary Coughlan, who lost her Dail seat in the election, signed off on approving the schools last week.
A spokesman for Foras Patrunachta said it has had an application in the department for a gaelscoil in the wider Tyrellstown-Mulhuddart area since 2007.
It also claimed 40% of parents who applied for their children to attend the school were born outside Ireland.
“The Foras Patrunachta feeling is that there should be provision of gaelscoileanna or Irish medium education throughout the country,” the spokesman said.
“The current system focusing on demographics does not answer or meet the needs of parents.”
