The opening of two primary schools in Ireland has been deferred, pending further reviews of the areas in which they are located.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn explained the decision has been taken to defer the openings of the proposed schools in the Midleton/Carrigtwohill area of East Cork and Swords in Dublin due to a lack of support for the patrons who applied to run them, the Irish Examiner reports.

These schools were set to open their gates in September 2014, with two prospective patrons applying for each of them with the intention of running multi-denominational schools.

Educational Society of Ireland and Dublin and Dun Laoghaire Education and Training Board (ETB) both applied for the Dublin school, while Educate Together and the Cork ETB put their names forward for the school in East Cork. 

A report on the Cork school by the forward planning section of the Department of Education read: "The demand presented by the applicants for their models is not strong and, even taken together, a viable multi-denominational model does not emerge."

Written by Donal Walsh

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