'Government should first incentivise school mergers' - Bishop

The Bishop of Kilmore Leo O’Reilly has suggested an amalgamation of national schools in large urban centres rather than the State’s planned approach of divesting patronage may “prove more fruitful”. But he believes that the Department would need to provide more incentives for such action, coupled with the backing of the local communities involved.
Commenting in relation to Minister for Education Richard Bruton’s recent remarks that the Government will push ahead with plans to divest patronage of Catholic primary schools, he said: “Divesting would only come in for consideration where there was a proven demand for alternative provision and where an existing school was surplus to the needs of the parish community. It could only proceed in consultation with the school community involved and the wider parish community that would be affected by it.”
Mr Bruton said he wanted to see the process accelerated and to increase the number of multi-denominational schools to 400 within the next 15 years, to cater for parental choice.
More than 90% of the State’s 3,200 primary schools are currently managed by the Catholic Church, and Minister Bruton plans for an average of 20 new multi-denominational and non-denominational schools per year between now and 2030.
He has asked his Department to set these targets for each of the next five years, including newly built schools and divested ones, suggesting too recalling earlier plans to develop State-run primary schools known as Community National Schools (CNS).

Welcome
Providing for the preparation for the Catholic sacraments during the school day, these CNS would be run by the country’s former VECs, now Education and Training Boards (ETBs).
“I welcome this development and have long been of the view that, where there is a demand for schools for those who do not wish to send their children to Catholic (or Church of Ireland) schools, there should be provision,” the Bishop said in a statement to The Anglo-Celt.
“I understand that the Minister has proposed modifying the Community National School model to provide for shared trusteeship or patronage and I would welcome that,” said the Bishop.

Incentive
Neither Bishop O’Reilly nor the Bishops’ Education Council or the Bishops’ Conference have yet been contacted or consulted on the proposals, but he warns any decision should only come where there is a demand for alternative school provision or an existing school is surplus to parish needs.
The Bishop told the Celt: “It could only proceed in consultation with the school community involved and the wider parish community that would be affected by it. I believe that, perhaps, a more fruitful approach to alternative provision might be by way of amalgamation, but that would mean that the Department would need to provide incentive for schools to amalgamate. And obviously this would only apply in larger centres where there were a number of schools serving the parish community.”