Kyrylo Luhovyi (13), who lives in Greystones, Co Wicklow, repeated sixth class last year because the local secondary schools were full.
This year he has been told, once again, there is no place available for him in September.
“He is 91st on the waiting list for one of the schools – Temple Carrig School – and 58th for another, St David’s Holy Faith,” said his aunt and guardian, Iryna Balashova.
“One school said in an email earlier this month, ‘We don’t anticipate that there will be much movement on this number.’”
The boy, who is displaced from Odessa in Ukraine, came to Ireland in May 2023 and started primary school shortly after arriving.
After applying to local secondary schools in October 2023, he was unable to secure a place for the 2024/25 academic year because they were oversubscribed.
He repeated sixth class at St Patrick’s National School and reapplied for the 2025/26 school year in the hope of securing a place.
Ms Balashova said her nephew feels confused and upset.
“It is very difficult,” she said. “He is very worried. He always asks me: ‘Where will I be going to school? Have you found a place yet?’
“He does not want to repeat sixth class again. His friends are all going to secondary school. I tell him not to worry, it will be okay. But he does worry about it.”
The 13-year-old is not alone. The Department of Education has confirmed that it is monitoring admissions in “high enrolment pressure areas” in commuter belt areas of Galway, Kildare and Wicklow and will put in “specific accommodation solutions” to support first-year intake. It has pledged that every child will have a school place for September 2025.
In many cases, families and public representatives say school place shortages are down to delays building new schools or expanding existing ones in areas of rapid population growth.
In Greystones, for example, the population has jumped by 20 per cent since 2016 to more than 20,000, with new housing estates dotted around the periphery of the town.
A delay to the construction of a permanent 1,000-pupil school building for Greystones Community College is seen by many as a contributory factor to enrolment pressure. Classes have been temporarily located for several years in prefabs and modular units across tennis, GAA and rugby clubs, and the new building is due to open in about six months.
Independent councillor Orla Finn said in the meantime enrolment pressure means many students are being forced to travel on long commutes to Dublin and elsewhere in order to find school places.
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“I have been contacted by a number of worried and stressed families,” she said. “With just 16 weeks to go to the start of the school year, this is totally unacceptable.”
She said the shortage will continue until a new secondary school is built in nearby Newtownmountkennedy and extensions are added to local second-level schools.
“The Department of Education needs to step in now to provide a school place for those who are still waiting for one for September 2025,” said Ms Finn.
Another worried parent is Emma McCann, whose daughter Jamie (12) is on the waiting list for three local second-level schools.
McCann says her daughter is 52nd on the waiting list for both Temple Carrig in Greystones and Coláiste Chraobh Abhann in Kilcoole – about 5km away – and 18th on the waiting list for Greystones Community College.
“I’ve been told the lists aren’t budging,” McCann says. “I was asked by the receptionist at one of the schools, ‘Would you consider home schooling?’
“It’s infuriating. I’m born and bred here. My family support is here. Her friends are here, her sport is here. I’d like her to be here, but they’ve built all these houses with no infrastructure.”
McCann said the uncertainty is impacting on her daughter in subtle but significant ways.
“She’s quiet, she feels left out. I’m trying not to make it a huge thing for her ... When her pals talk about school, she just sways back from it.”
McCann said the need for a school place in her daughter’s case is all the more pressing as she is in receipt of learning support.
“She does struggle, but I have nowhere to go to say, ‘this is the kind of support she’ll need next year.’ I’m worried that she’ll get thrown into a school at the last minute with nothing.”
Rachel Harper, principal of St Patrick’s National School, said she has seen first-hand the kind of pressure uncertainty over school places has on children in sixth class.
“It is a big step, anyway, going from primary to second level,” she said. “We do a lot of work with the children to help them prepare for it, but the elephant in the room is that some children don’t have a place or don’t know where they’ll be going. It makes it so much more difficult for them.”
At a national level, the Department of Education says there are more than enough school places for children, with more than 10,000 spare places available for the 2025-2026 school year.
It said it uses a range of data when analysing demand for school places such as child benefit, census figures, housing projections and data on residential construction activity.
While there is demand for additional school places in some areas, it said this may sometimes be driven by duplication of applications, pupils from outside catchment areas applying, and “school of choice” factors.
However, it has acknowledged that demographic pressures are also driving enrolment pressures in some commuter belt areas. The department said it has requested continuous 2025 admissions updates from schools in parts of Cork, Dublin, Kildare, Offaly and Wicklow in order to “monitor and expedite the admissions process for parents and pupils in these high-enrolment pressure areas”.
Separately, education authorities are scrambling to find special classes and special school places for hundreds of children with autism and other conditions. It plans to open 400 new special classes and 300 additional special school places in time for the new school year.
The extent of additional need for mainstream places, meanwhile, is less clear, but some principals say progress is being made. An improved Department of Education IT system for registering students now automatically flags duplicate school enrolments.
“It is definitely better than last year,” said one principal in an area of enrolment pressure, who asked not to be named. “It allows us to see immediately if a child has accepted a school place elsewhere, so we can move quickly to flag it with the department. We have fewer children without places this year. They should all get sorted, even if it takes emergency measures in August, but it shouldn’t have to come to this.”
The department said it will continue to proactively engage with patrons and schools, including in Greystones, in the weeks ahead to monitor demand and ensure every child has a school place for September 2025.
For those without school places, however, the wait continues. Iryna Balashova said she tries to put on a brave face for her nephew.
“I tell him it will be okay in the end. He wants to be with his friends. It’s not fair that a child like him, who is still learning English, should have to travel far to get a place. This is where he lives.”
