Minister for Education Mary Hanafin has denied there is racism in the Irish education system as it emerged that a new school established in north Co Dublin to take an excess of pupils will have an all black attendance.
In an interview this morning Ms Hanafin said that a new school being established in Balbriggan, Co Dublin, to take around 50 of the 90 school-less children in the area, was likely to open with all "black" pupils.
Minister for Education Mary Hanafin has denied institutional racism in Irish schools. Image: Irish Times.
It has emerged that at a meeting over the weekend organised by education officials for parents of Balbriggan children without a school place, none were white.
But Ms Hanafin said this was because all of the families had arrived in February or March and denied that schools were discriminating.
"It might be a skin colour issue, but it's not necessarily a race issue," she told RTÉ Radio. "The nature of Irish society is changing. It's particularly changing in some communities."
The Department of Education has asked the multi-denominational organisation Educate Together to open a school within weeks.
Ms Hanafin she she was hopeful that the school's ethnic make-up would re-balance over time. "I would not like the situation developing where it was an all black school."
She said part of the problem was that many school roles closed early and one way to avoid racially segregated schools would be to stop this practice.
It is projected that the number of primary school pupils will rise by 100,000 over the next decade. Enrolments at primary schools this year will hit 485,000, the highest in a decade.
Ms Hanafin also said local authorities were partly responsible for the situation because they provided planning permission for new housing developments without checking that the necessary social infrastructure, such as school size, was in place.
The education system ended-up paying "top money" for new school sites, she said.
An extra 100,000 school places would be created over next seven to eight years through a €4.5 billion budget.