The court ruled the strategy breached sections of the Act due to a lack of benchmarks and targets within it. The Act was created following a Private Member’s Bill by Strangford MLA Ms Armstrong in 2022. The case against the Department was brought by the Integrated Education Fund (IEF).

“There’s nothing more important than creating a peaceful, respectful, and united society here in Northern Ireland for our future generations, and access to integrated education has been rightly identified as playing a key role in achieving that,” said Ms Armstrong.

“I’m relieved the Education Minister has not been permitted to run roughshod over the requirements of himself and his Department that are enshrined in law within the Integrated Education Act.

“Clear and defined targets and benchmarks should be the foundation upon which any official strategy is based upon, or it is simply not worth the paper it’s written on. That the Department’s initial draft of such a crucial strategy contained none was extremely concerning.

“It is unfortunate the IEF were forced to act in order to see this wrong righted, but I want to extend my sincere thanks to them and their team for their diligent work in bringing this case forward and helping secure essential improvements to the strategy.

“The Education Minister has a legal duty to promote the expansion of integrated education, and whilst his commitment so far has been found wanting to say the least, we now must see the revised strategy implemented in full and without any further delay.”