Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

We have had church-State dialogue for some time. The Taoiseach will recall that his predecessor put in place a process for the holding of church-State discussions and talks of a general nature. This is not the first time that Archbishop Martin has expressed these views on the patronage and management of schools. It would appear to me that he is far ahead of the Government on this issue. For example, he was able to outline in his speech yesterday the details of ownership of schools and school properties, something which the Minister of Education and Science was unable to provide in a reply to a Dáil question tabled by Deputy Quinn a few weeks ago. He has specifically suggested a mechanism for the conduct of talks about schools, and that is the idea of a national forum on education, education management and patronage. Will the Government agree to the setting up of such a forum? It would allow for discussions to take place in a reasoned way and over a period of time between the State, the churches, the various educational interests, the various bodies that are currently patrons of schools or that wish to be patrons, and which can be open to hearing the views of the different stakeholders in the education system, such as parents, teachers and so on.

The suggestion of a national education forum by the Archbishop of Dublin is very progressive. I ask the Taoiseach to agree to it and to set it up as soon as possible.

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