Dublin Primary schools will no longer be prioritising siblings from next year

Not great news for parents.

My son is in Third Class and as things stand I have is younger sister's name down to attend the same school. For most parents, it's a given that you will send all of your children of a similar age to the same school as it means one drop off and collection (though times may be a little different now with staggered drop and collect times). In general it just makes life a lot easier for parents which is why schools would generally have it in their policy that they prioritise children who have a sibling already attending the school. Unfortunately, for many parents including myself, that rule is to be done away with, leaving many of us uncertain on if our children will get a place at the school we put them down for. This new decision by Catholic primary schools in the greater Dublin comes following reports the Archdiocese of Dublin has asked schools to update their admissions policies. The changes are due to kick in next year for the 2021 academic year. While the archdiocese say this will change very little as far as admission and that it is only for over prescribed schools, how exactly are parents to know if their intended school is over prescribed? Also if this rule changes very little, why change it at all as all that it is doing is putting more stress on parents who have had an already very stressful year? According to 98FM Father John Gilligan is Parish Priest for Saggart, Rathcoole, Brittas and Newcastle said;

"The policy is really only for those schools that are over-prescribed, so for most schools this won't apply. Once the numbers are within the range there's no problem but it's where it's over-prescribed then you have the whole hassle of equality, equal rights."

I find this reasoning just doesn't measure up and that surely building more schools would be the answer rather than having parents struggle to get all their children to school on time because the schools are in different locations. Parents in many areas like Rush have been calling for years for more schools to be built to no avail and now once again parents in high catchment areas may find themselves struggling to obtain a place for their child at school.