Geographical imbalance unfair to Meath PLC applicants - Wallace

Meath East TD Mary Wallace, a member of the Oireachtas Education Committee, is fighting for fairness for Meath Post Leaving Certificate (PLC) applicants. This week the responsible officials from the Department of Education were brought before the All Party Committee to explain their position.

Mary Wallace stated “Post Leaving Cert (PLC) places will be extra valuable this year as people endeavour to upskill and improve their chances of returning to employment with additional educational qualifications. These places are also very valuable for the 2010 Leaving Cert student who are short of points for 3rd level college and who need to make up the gap with a view to postponing college entry to 2011.”

Mary Wallace believes that the Dunboyne PLC college provides excellent places for these students but she is concerned that there is simply not enough places with 850 applicants already for 250 places and the College expects a further 400 applicants in August when the 2010 Leaving Cert results are announced.

Mary Wallace continued “Meath is the 5th most populated county in Ireland with 162,831 population yet we are ranked as 22nd in the country in PLC provision with only 2 places per 1000 population. This amounts to only 328 plc places for the whole County. By comparison Cavan has 19 plc places per 1000 population, Louth has 10 plc places and Dublin has 10 places per 1000 population.”

Mary Wallace questioned the officials on how the historical geographic divide is impacting on Meath. The use of the live register figures response gave her greater concern as she pointed out to officials that people from south meath sign on in Finglas in Dublin and in Maynooth in Kildare. The officials are now to look at this and report back to the committee.


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