Muckross takes case over girl enrolled aged 2 months

A Dublin secondary school has said that an education appeals committee was wrong in finding its board of management could not refuse a place for a girl because her application for admission was made under a 2005 enrolment policy, the High Court heard.

Muckross Park College, Donnybrook, claims the appeals committee, set up by the Department of Education and Science, was fundamentally incorrect when it decided the school had a place for the girl under the enrolment policy in place in 2005, when her admission application was submitted by her father.

The girl was then just two-months-old.

The school changed its enrolment policy in 2011, the court heard.

The board of management of Muckross has brought the challenge over the decision of an appeals committee, which was established under the 1998 Education Act to deal with appeals over matters like enrolment refusals and suspensions.

Mr Justice Seamus Noonan granted leave to bring judicial review proceedings, following an ex-parte application by Marguerite Bolger SC, on behalf of the board of management of Muckross.

Ms Bolger said the father was told at the time of the application that his daughter was 86th on the enrolment list, even though it would be 2017 before she would go to the school.

There are 120 new places available each year in Muckross, which is heavily over-subscribed, counsel said.

Under current rules, parents are informed three years in advance of admission whether they fall within the priority group for places, and last year the father of this child was told she did not, counsel said.

The school had changed its enrolment policy in 2011, including broadening it to give priority to girls attending identified local national schools.

The school also has a policy of giving priority to daughters of past pupils.

The Supreme Court recently upheld this policy as lawful, although it seems there is an intention by the Government to change the law in that regard, counsel said.

When the girl in this case failed to get a place, her father appealed that decision under Section 29 of the 1998 Education Act, whereby the secretary of the Department of Education appoints a committee to hear the appeal.

That committee came to the conclusion that she had an entitlement to a place under the enrolment policy in place in 2005 and it was also not open to the board to change the way it implemented the policy in relation to this case.

Ms Bolger said that decision cannot stand up on any reasonable reading of the 2005 policy.

She said it was always going to be the case the position the girl held in 2005 was going to be diluted by new applications over the following 10 years, in which some of those applicants had higher priority by virtue of the other enrolment criteria.

Counsel said that it was also the case that the board was entitled to change its policy at any time as long as it was within the law.