The Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) has welcomed the issue of a discussion paper on a regulatory framework for school enrolment published by the Department of Education and Skills.

“In too many cases where a school is not full, refusals to enrol students are made for spurious reasons where the pupil would not present any health and safety danger to the existing school community,” TUI General Secretary Peter MacMenamin said.

“For example, we believe that certain schools have being facilitated by the Department’s past inaction inaction in openly flouting education and equality legislation by actively discouraging those students who have special educational needs from attending their schools.”

“This results in those schools which practice fair policies enrolling a disproportionate number of such students at a time when provision for students with special educational needs has been hacked back to the bare bones.”

“We welcome this discussion paper and will be issuing a full submission to the Department in due course.”