High Court backs school in dispute over enrolment [Irish Times]
- Published: 18 February 2009
Source: Irish Times
A NATIONAL school has won a High Court order overturning an "irrational" and unlawful direction from the Department of Education requiring it to enrol two more pupils when it had previously turned down 41 others because of lack of space.
Ms Justice Mary Irvine ruled that a specially appointed appeals committee exceeded its powers in holding St Molaga's National School in Balbriggan, Dublin, to take the two extra pupils.
She quashed a direction that the school enrol the two children, who have since gone to another school, after finding the direction was irrational and had failed to consider relevant matters while taking into account irrelevant factors.
It was not the function of this committee to sort out a problem of "shortage of school places in an expanding community", the judge said.
The decision related to the system of appeals ; Section 29 committees set up under the Education Act 1998 ; for parents dissatisfied as to why their children were refused enrolment.
In the St Molaga's case, the High Court heard the parents of two girls who were refused places had appealed the decision and a Section 29 committee recommended the school take them after holding it had the capacity to do so.
The school was then directed to comply by the secretary general of the Department of Education and Science.
The school board brought High Court proceedings challenging the decision. The court heard St Molaga's, which had expanded rapidly in the past 10 years, had refused to install another pre-fab on its grounds because the school electrical system would need a major upgrade to accommodate that.
The board of management was willing to expand to a 24-classroom school but only on the basis of permanent accommodation being provided, which had not been forthcoming, it said.
Ms Justice Irvine said St Molaga's board of management had made a decision in March 2007 to only take pupils from its adjacent junior feeder school, St Peter and Paul's, for a period of four years. It hoped to obtain new accommodation within that timeframe.
The board had informed the department of this decision and by the time the two children in this case sought places, this policy had been in force for 11 months and 41 prospective students had been told there were no places.
Against this background, the judge ruled the Section 29 committee had exceeded its powers under the Education Act in purporting to carry out a full appeal into an effective decision as to the school's capacity, based on management considerations.
The power of a Section 29 committee was intended to be confined to a right to review the lawfulness and/or reasonableness of a board of management's decision to refuse enrolment, the judge said.
Ms Justice Irvine said it would take very clear language in Section 29 to convince her the legislature intended to establish an appeals committee which could reverse a management decision made by a board of management. If that were the case, a board of management could be forced to enrol more students than it considered safe.
This could expose a board to litigation concerning which the Section 29 committee would "undoubtedly contend it had no liability", Ms Justice Irvine added.
