The Government has approved plans for the building of 12 new primary schools around the country under the patronage of either non-denominational or multi-denominational bodies. The schools are to be located in the cities and commuter belts of Dublin and Cork.

For years pressure in those places has hit Catholic schools hard and they had to adopt a system of deciding who would be accepted into oversubscribed schools. Their method of granting priority to children of Catholic families has been unfairly dubbed a ‘baptism barrier’. Spokespersons for Catholic schools, however, claimed there was instead a ‘buildings barrier’ that needed to be overcome in the areas where population growth exceeded school places.

This latest announcement by the Department of Education should ease the acuteness of the problem, but it remains to be seen whether politicians will drop plans to curb the capacity of Catholic schools to give any priority to children of their own faith community.