Secondary school enrolment “crisis”

If had approval in principle it should be gone to planning.

Has the BOM sought planning permission? because if not it won't be started this year.

If that were true then the demographic "mini baby boom" would not be a factor, as this growth year is far less than 5000 different to last

The figures are from the Department of Education. If you have alternative ones, by all means.

But the reality is our schools are under subscribed, I know of 2 in the last 2 years that had to close and amalgamate due to lack of numbers.

The hope particularly in rural schools is the Ukrainians in the short term will keep them open, and the trend of working from home will give couples more options to buy or build rurally. That will be mid-term, because by the time they start a family, etc.

A rural school closing that may have been there in excess of 100 years is horrific and is beyond damaging for the area.

Schools in certain areas are certainly feeling pressure, but this is little to do with immigrants and all to do with myopic and incompetent county councils.

Actually immigrants are contributing to the problem simply by being here.

All the kids affected aren't natives from procreative Irish by a long shot.

The immigrants often got screwed over more than natives because they have no older siblings already in the schools which helps get the younger kids in.

BTW by immigrants here I mean primarily people that came here legally and to work who either brought young families or started young families whilst here.

But the thing is they didn't all turn up with 12 years old looking for secondary school places, they had kids in school for years in primary schools in the area.

So the numbers were known with years, yet no one got off their holes and used a bit of joined up thinking.

The other noticable thing is when you talk to Americans, Europeans whose kids are affected they all wonder how a state allows hundreds if not thousands of new houses into an area, but they never think they might need additional school places.

They are usually totaly baffled by this form of lack of planning.

Ah would ya ever clear off with that line of argument.

No one bar the totally barmy have argued against working visa holding professional and skilled immigrants.

I know it is convenient for people of a certain open borders viewpoint to try make it, so to cover up for the total shortcomings of the other type of immigrants that arrive with no profession, no skills, feck all education to be placed in a hotel, go on social welfare, get a medical card and eventually be given their own home for life.

So stop the bullshyte.

If you took every child of an immigrant, asylum seeker or refugee out to the Blasket islands, this problem would still exist. It’s got very little to do with immigration etc. It’s just bad, bad planning. Huge, badly needed, housing projects in certain areas, especially the counties surrounding Dublin. No secondary schools being built in a timely fashion to cater for the teens coming on board. Blame who you want, but, ultimately political blame has to land at the door of the Minister for Education, whose job is to ensure this doesn’t happen.

Given the fact that it is only unvetted men of army going age that are sent to live it rural communities they can't be the reason.

It's not really anything at all to do with County Councils. County Councils can often identify the land for schools in development plans 10 or 15 years before the dept of education actually moves in to build. It's the Dept of Educations bad planning that is where the main responsibility lies.

The Department of Education paid €1.2m for a site for a school near Malahide, Co Dublin, on the advice of Fingal County Council — who have now refused to give it planning permission.

It's slightly worse than that.

Fingal County Council is believed to have received more than €125,000 in fees for its work on the project.

The decision — which was signed by the Senior Executive Planner and the Director of Services — said planning was refused because it contravened access, parking and cycling “connectivity” and the provision of the school was not in keeping with the area’s zoning as “green belt”.

The forward planning section of the department engage directly with the planning departments in the County Councils. This goes on for years.

The code of practice dictates that before the Department buy the site there is of pre-planning with the planning authority.

Basically the county council does all the work, because that is their remit, then once all the conditions are met the land is purchased.

This incurs work by the planning authority so they get paid, in this instance €125,000.

It was designed this way to avoid tom fúckery, but when there is no consequences, it's just oh well.

Immigrants aren't at fault for anything they're just availing of what's offered to them