Mr. Paul Rowe:

On the access issue, we would agree that the measures provided for in this Bill are only tinkering with a system that needs thorough and systemic review. Educate Together has been working in this particular area for the best part of 40 years. Over those years, we have served many families who are isolated and marginalised by the system. We now operate schools in different jurisdictions and as such we can bring new thinking to this area. Our main proposal is that the State would take responsibility, perhaps by way of an independent State body such as an education and training board, for the establishment of an application process which allows any family with a three year old child to express a preference for the school they would like their child to attend, be that an Irish medium school, an Educate Together school and so on. The State would then, for the first time in history, know the real level of demand for the different types of schools.

I take on board the Senators' point about parental preference. The Constitution is very strong on the question of parental preference. We have only recently enshrined the rights of children in our Constitution. Parental preference is another discussion we must have as a nation. If we did have an area-based type admissions process, the State for the first time could allocate resources according to the real level of demand and could then address the levels of over-subscription, which are reaching crisis point in urban areas. Educate Together schools in the Dublin area are two to three times over-subscribed routinely. Tinkering with our admissions policy is simply trying to decide who to exclude.

It is not addressing the problem. We must have a way in which the State knows what types of and how many schools are necessary and can then provide them.

Reference was made to siblings. It is really important that members of families be able to access schools together in a realistic way.

Reference was also made to local access. In the system we propose the State could establish on a statutory basis a transparent set of criteria whereby places could be allocated. The statutory criteria would ensure the State would make proper provision for children with special or language needs in order to prevent the polarisation of school and communities to which Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin referred. We have trialled such a system in our schools in Lucan where we have an area-based admissions policy precisely because we identified serious and significant ethnic segregation or separation in the schools within the area.

Ireland is in the early stages of witnessing population growth after 200 years of decline. Other places have had proper systems in place to handle growth in population and produce a suitable range of educational provisions. We have to start thinking in a way in which the State will take much more responsibility and live up to its responsibilities to ensure no child will be discriminated against in seeking access to education.

Children do not choose their parents. They do not choose whether they are born into a wealthy or disadvantaged family. They do not choose any part of their genetic make-up. They do not choose their ethnicity or the religion of their family. It is absolutely impermissible for a modern democratic state to continue to discriminate against children on these grounds. It is impermissible not only on moral, political and ethical grounds, it is also imprudent on socioeconomic grounds because by isolating children on the basis of their identity, one is restraining the motivation to learn and depriving the State of the great wealth of the diversity of its human capital. That is something the State has to address and it has to be addressed in this historical period. To be honest, in simply adjusting parts of the current system, a school-based system, one will not address the problem.