It's a busy day on the Caitriona Ruane front today. I'd just like to issue a quick thank you to Jim Allister for confirming that I was right when I said that Ms Ruane was talking out her arse when she said she wanted to change the law to prevent Northern Ireland schools, shockingly, giving preference to children living in Northern Ireland because it "may" breach EU equality rules (and thanks also to Nevin for mentioning it in his comment on this Slugger post).

Jim Allister has contacted the European Commission who have confirmed that this is nonsense. Allister's blog contains the long, wordy response, but in short the child from the Republic would only have a right to equal treatment in terms of admission to the school if she was residing in Northern Ireland. As I tried to explain to one commenter (hi Kensei) previously, the school is perfectly within its rights to use residency as a criterion when admitting pupils; it just can't use nationality.

Is it possible that this has something to do with the fact that Ms Ruane's own children live in County Louth, in the Republic, but attend school in Northern Ireland? Was she lying or is she just incompetent?