On Wednesday 5th October Riverwood Residents Association went into Dail Eireann hoping to get the Riverwood Estate back into the Catchment area for CCC. We were looking to Joan Burton and Leo Varadkar to influence the VEC to amend the draft proposal.
Unfortunately Leo was in Brussels and Joan had to leave the meeting to attend a Dail debate so their influence was missed.
The VEC were not prepared to move Riverwood into the CCC catchment area or consider any of the proposals made by the residents association. Based on recent figures of students applying to CCC, if they were applied to the proposed draft enrollment policy the school will be oversubscribed at selection criteria 4 and would need even reach criteria 5 – catchment Area5 . We will continue to see if Joan Burton or Leo Varadkar can assist us further.
We have also been discussing this issue with David McGuinness from Fianna Fail, David is a Board of Management member of both schools and has committed to talking to the VEC and the Dept of Education on our behalf. He has also brought it to the attention of both Michael Martin and Brendan Smith in Fianna Fail who are also making representations on our behalf.
On Wednesday 12th October at the St Patricks Parents Association meeting this issue was also discussed at length. It was clear that there is support from the other estates in Carpenterstown for Riverwood’s case and that they feel that the existing Draft enrollment policy is unfair for for the community as a whole.