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(Alt é seo ónár bhfoireann Gaeltachta. Is féidir leat an bunleagan as Gaeilge a léamh anseo.)
“THERE IS NO phone number, no email address, no form to fill in, no way to submit a request to the Department of Education to establish an Irish-medium secondary school.”
That is the frustration-laden message from a new parents’ group launching a campaign today in the centre of Dublin later todat. Their aim is to pressure TDs and Senators to put legislation in place that would give the Department of Education a mandate to establish all-Irish secondary schools.
Rachel de Bhailís, spokesperson for the group Imeasc, explained that the mandate of the Department of Education and Youth was based on three pieces of legislation and that none of them contained any reference to all-Irish education.
“The mandate of the Department of Education is based on three Acts and there is no reference in any of them to all-Irish education — the Education Act 1998, the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 and the Education and Training Boards Act 2013,” said de Bhailís.
The Department of Education operates from those three Acts and there is nothing within them regarding the provision of education through the medium of Irish, and for that reason they are not obliged to pursue it.
In their press release, Imeasc referred to a Trinity College Dublin-Tara survey published last year which indicated that 49% of adults would choose all-Irish education for their children if it was available locally.
In reality, outside the Gaeltacht, only 4.8% of the country’s school pupils are receiving education through the medium of Irish.
It was stated that this represented a decline from 5.2% in 2019, even as the total number of pupils is now at an all-time high.
It was also claimed in the press release that more than 50% of the Department’s school planning areas have no gaelscoil — and that more than 90% of them have no gaelcholáiste.
There is no gaelcholáiste available in ten counties. These include Leitrim, Sligo, Roscommon, Westmeath, Longford, Louth, Laois, Offaly, Clare and Cavan. Outside of the gaelcholáistí in Gaeltacht areas in Mayo and County Meath, there is no other provision of all-Irish second-level education.
Between 1970 and 2000, parents opened 100 gaelscoileanna while the Department opened only eleven gaelcholáistí, de Bhailís indicated.
“Because it is easier to establish a gaelscoil in a GAA club with one parent who is free to provide the teaching and training at little cost, we are able to establish gaelscoileanna and parents do that for the most part.
“It is not as simple as that with gaelcholáistí because more teachers are involved and more costs are involved — so we are waiting on the Department of Education to do that but there is no way of making it happen.
Imeasc’s concern is that there is no process for parents to take the first step towards establishing a gaelcholáiste.
“There is no phone number you can call to say: ‘we have carried out a survey here locally and there are 200 pupils ready to go next year if you open a gaelcholáiste in this area’,” she said.
She indicated that the response they receive when they seek help from TDs is a standard form — the kind that would be available for an ordinary secondary school — and that this implies they are seeking to compete with a school that is not providing Irish-medium education that is already in existence.
They are then told that there are sufficient places in the area and the application is refused, or, if there is a shortage of places, an extension is added to the existing school building.
Inquiries regarding the questions being raised by Imeasc have been sent to the Department of Education and Youth.
The campaign launch will take place at Buswells Hotel today between 1pm and 3pm.
The Journal’s Gaeltacht initiative is supported by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
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