The Minister for Education, Mr Martin, has signalled an important policy shift on multi-denominational schooling by agreeing to buy a site for a religiously-mixed primary school in Galway.
The site, valued at £250,000, will be purchased by the State for the Galway School Project. Speaking in Galway yesterday, the Minister said he had instructed his officials to work with the local authority to acquire the land at Newcastle as soon as possible.
Mr Martin was acting on a recommendation by the Department of Education's School Accommodation Commission that new multi-denominational schools should be treated in the same way as Gaelscoileanna: the State should buy sites for them and provide 100 per cent capital funding.
For the past 23 years, since the Dalkey School Project was founded, groups of parents have had to struggle, without church support, to raise money to buy sites and find 15 per cent of the building cost for multi-denominational schools.
Mr Martin's decision means that, for the first time, the sector will be in a better position than denominational schools, which will still have to buy sites and raise 15 per cent of capital costs, albeit with church backing.
The 128-pupil Galway School Project had now reached a critical stage and needed permanent premises, Mr Martin said yesterday when he visited the school in its temporary, rented accommodation at the University of Galway's student housing complex. It has 36 pupils with special needs but no remedial teacher.
The Minister acknowledged that sites in Galway were the most expensive in the State. He was satisfied that a suitable one had been earmarked by Galway Corporation, with the help of the Galway city manager, Mr Joe Gavin.
Both the chair of the Galway School Project executive committee, Ms Laura Brennan, and senior Department of Education officials described Mr Martin's decision as "historic". Ms Brennan said it represented "one of the most important national policy changes since free education".
The co-ordinator of Educate Together, Ms Deirdre O'Donoghue, was "delighted" at the news. "This is a real breakthrough which will be of enormous help to the development of our sector."