Ms Jane Donnelly:

I hope not. This is very simple for me. If we base an education system on human rights, we will find all the answers there. We talk about choice and the choice of parents, but the right to education belongs to the child. I do not know whether I am the only parent here, but I have been discriminated against on two grounds - because I am an atheist and also because I have a child with special needs. The connection between those two and the feelings associated with such discrimination are the same; discrimination hurts. If we give a child his or her right to education and we make that the priority, that child's access to the school must not be a burden to his or her parents. We cannot say to a local family that if they cannot get their child into the local school because it is oversubscribed by a certain category of students, they will have to go 50 miles outside the area. That is a breach of their human rights. It is as simple as that. The Government has promised us those human rights. By ratifying all those United Nations treaties it has said that we can have those rights, and it has said to children that it will guarantee their human rights. It cannot give every parent a choice. It is ridiculous to talk about choice because choice means nothing to me. I keep hearing those words but I never have any choice. One only has a choice of a particular school or a particular patron body. The Government cannot give every parent a choice and fund a certain type of education for every family in the country. One has to think about that, because it cannot be done. The Government is picking and choosing. It is picking the majority in a particular area instead of concentrating on the rights of the child to be brought up in his or her community with children from diverse backgrounds. That is the way forward.

Article 42.3.1° of the Constitution, which everybody ignores, states: "The State shall not oblige parents in violation of their conscience and lawful preference to send their children to schools established by the State, or to any particular type of school designated by the State." The Irish State ignores that Article because secular parents have no choice but to send their children to schools with a religious ethos, where they leave their human rights at the school gate. That is what happens to us. The Government violates our conscience and lawful preference, and the UN is telling it that. The UN told the Government that in 2008. The UN told the Irish State, under the international covenant of civil and political rights, that the integrated curriculum in denominational schools constitutes discrimination and breaches the right to freedom of conscience, the rights of the child, and the right to equality before the law of secular parents and their children, and everybody just ignores that. Atheist Ireland and the Irish Human Rights Commission believe that the Government should base its future policy on human rights law and treat all children in the State equally.