The mother of a 12-year-old boy in west Dublin says she's 'knocking on doors' to try and secure a school place for her son.

Charlie has finished 6th class and is waiting for a secondary school placement in Lucan.

A number of schools have put him on waiting lists but he has no school place with the new year starting next week.

Charlie's mother Ellen Arbuthnot told Newstalk Breakfast they have been applying since last September.

"He's no place in any of the four schools that I've applied to in Lucan," she said.

"Since the applications opened last September and October, the very first letters we got back were all refusal letters and placements of numbers on waiting lists.

"He just doesn't tick every single box in every single school in Lucan.

"There's siblings, feeder schools, catchment areas - there's a whole list of things."

'His friends are getting accepted'

Ms Arbuthnot said there is high demand for school places with only six secondary schools in the area.

"He's the eldest in my house so he has no siblings to follow," she said,

She said it's stressful to watch his friends move school without him.

"He'd be coming home from school checking the postbox and they'd be letters saying, 'You're number X on the waiting list.'

"Maybe three or four weeks [later] they'd follow with an updated letter [that] we'd moved up five or 10 places.

"His friends were getting accepted into different schools and he was saying, 'Hopefully I get this school because my best friend's here'.

"He was just not getting any of them".

Education Minister Norma Foley told Newstalk officials from her department will engage "directly" on the case.

"We do have a forward planning unit within the department - where there are areas of high pressure we have already added hundreds of school places right across the country," she said.

'The only one with no place'

Ms Arbuthnot said "six or seven of his friends" were in a similar situation.

"Today now, the week school is going back, he's the only one that I know with no place," she said.

"It is majorly impacting on him... we don't know what we're doing or where we're going.

"It looks he'll be sitting at home tomorrow and next week until they see where the no-shows come in to secondary school.

"It's impacting the whole lot of us as a family".

'Pushed further down the list'

Ms Arbuthnot said her decision to come on national airwaves was a last resort.

"I'm knocking on doors, I'm shouting as loud as I can, this is really last resort," she said.

"I really didn't want to put a post on Facebook or go to social media at all but when it's affecting him so much [I have no choice].

"Some of his friends have places in secondary schools that they might not necessarily want so they're holding their spots on waiting lists up until this week to wait and see if they get preference.

"By doing that we're all pushed further down the waiting list".

She added that something needs to change in the "flawed" system.

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