School wins appeal in action over admissions [IrishTimes]
- Published: 26 July 2011
THE OIREACHTAS should look at making positive discrimination mandatory for schools in their admissions policies, a judge suggested yesterday as he allowed an appeal by a secondary school against a ruling that it had discriminated against a Traveller boy refusing him admission.
At the Circuit Court in Clonmel, Judge Tom Teehan acknowledged that the legislators must, like both the courts and school boards who frame admissions policies, seek to strike a balance between legitimate competing interests in relation to school policies.
Judge Teehan made his comments when he allowed an appeal by Christian Brothers High School in Clonmel against a decision by the Equality Tribunal which found that the school had indirectly discriminate against Travellers when it refused a Traveller boy admission.
John Stokes (13), through his mother, Mary, and instructed by the Irish Traveller Movement Independent Law Centre, lodged the complaint against the school on the grounds that it had breached the Equal Status Act when it failed to admit him to the school.
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