THE Government has said over €5billion is being invested in the school sector from 2021 to 2025.
But tell that to parents and children in Dublin 8. Half the kids there will not have a local secondary school place next year.
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Campaign group Educate D8 is calling for a new school to be built locally as demand for spots in existing schools is too high.
Parents are concerned as their children are left without places in their own area, forcing them to navigate long commutes to attend schools far from home.
They’ve started a letter-writing campaign to Education Minister Norma Foley to highlight the fact youngsters are being forced to leave the area to attend secondary school.
Writing today, Susan Morrell, a D8 resident and member of the Educate D8 group, says the area is woefully neglected when it comes to secondary schools.
EDUCATION FUNDING
IN A rare good-news moment, Budget 2025 proposed welcome increases in education funding.
Regardless of how you feel about €9million funding for smartphone pouches, it’s clear that when the Government prioritises issues like children’s smartphone use, they’ll put plenty of money where their mouths are.
So, what about the families of Dublin 8?
In this vibrant, multicultural and rapidly growing inner-city area, parents continue to grapple with the historic under-investment in secondary school provision here, with many local children lacking access to nearby educational options and facing devastating commutes out of their community.
Dublin 8 has one of the fastest-growing youth populations in Ireland, with the number of children aged 10-19 growing by 30 per cent from 2016 to 2022.
It’s also one of the least Catholic areas in the country, according to the latest census information.
Half of the children in Dublin 8 are without secondary school options.
That means, by 2026, there will be 2,135 students from Dublin 8 commuting across a traffic-clogged city each day. At a time when the Government purports to support climate initiatives and promises nearly €12 billion for education.
Perhaps the problem is that the Government continues to view Dublin 8 as an area with a transient population.
The decision-makers who approve endless development of hotels, student accommodation and co-living buildings seem to think so.
Just ask the community groups rallying for sports facilities; or those crying out to have a much-needed community centre reopened after three years of closure.
But despite the lack of community-focused investment by the Government in Dublin 8, it is home to an engaged community of neighbours and families who wish to educate our children here locally. Like any community expects to do.
Our children deserve green spaces, sports facilities and fair and inclusive education options. Yet we have no non-religiously affiliated secondary school in Dublin 8.
DEMOGRAPHICS NOT REFLECTED
We currently have five secondary schools: four Catholic and one Church of Ireland. This provision simply doesn’t reflect existing demographics.
Recent census data shows that while 67 per cent of people in Ireland identify as Catholic, in Dublin 8 it’s far less: only 38 per cent here are Catholic. So where is the inclusive multi-denominational option for our children? Across Dublin, 42 per cent of secondary schools are now multi-denominational.
In Dublin 8, however, families seeking non-religiously affiliated education are forced to leave the area, face long commutes and languish at the bottom of waiting lists for places at schools in other catchment areas.
We in the Educate D8 advocacy group feel strongly that the problem is a lack of comprehension by the Department of Education about how decades of under-investment have impacted the community.
Members of our group recently met with Minister of Education Norma Foley to discuss the issue.
The department’s forward-planning system assumes that, because parents have traditionally been forced to send their kids out of the area for secondary school, they are happy to continue doing so.
According to Dr JoAnne Mancini from Maynooth University, when planning where to build new schools the Department of Education looks at current and future population growth in an area, capacity in existing schools and intake ratios.
WRONG ASSUMPTION
Contrary to what you’d expect, this approach actually gives preference to areas where more children attend secondary school, rather than those that have huge gaps in secondary provision.
In recent years, when Dublin 8 parents sought a new multi-denominational secondary school, the department responded by building an Educate Together school in Sandymount, Dublin 4.
The assumption seems to be that we should be grateful there are options an hour away by car, or other options that were built to serve other communities – not ours.
Our group welcomes the department’s decision, following our meeting, to revisit the forward-planning analysis and we look forward to meeting officials in the near future.
There’s a growing call for a real separation of church and state; for true education equality, which means provision of non-religious education. Our community in Dublin 8 continues to fight for fair and equal investment in our children.
For those making the long daily commutes to school, the time for education equality in Dublin 8 can’t come soon enough.
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