Mr. Paul Rowe:

I will answer a couple of the questions asked.

The opt-out facility has been a core concern for Educate Together for 40 years. It constitutes a profound denial of the human rights of children and families in the education system for far too long. It is simply not an acceptable way to address the rights of minorities. What happens over and over again is that parents think about and consider whether they should exercise their rights under the Constitution and the Education Act. In our experience eight out of ten families who think about the matter consider they are in a completely invidious position. At the end of the day they decide that the socialisation of their children is more important than imposing their religious views in such a way that they might be separated. Education Together provides the only model of education at primary level in which children are never separated, labelled or registered according to their religion at any time during the school day. There is an opt-in facility to participate entirely on a voluntary basis in faith formation or religious instruction classes outside the normal school day. That is the only way to address the issue. Isolating children on the basis of the religious identity of their families is simply inimitable to human rights legislation, educational values and what we think should be the standards of a modern democratic state. That is why we think the issue must be address in a much more profound way.

A question was asked about children with special educational needs. In Ireland families with children with special educational needs have been treated appallingly. They have been forced into a situation where time after time they must adopt a confrontational attitude to obtain even minimal services for their children. This is something the Oireachtas must address as a matter of priority. The Bill must give the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, the right to ensure resources will be made available for the placement of children. In our experience there are far too many examples. Almost all new schools make provision in an integrated manner for children with autism. In far too many instances, however, we have found that a child has been allocated a place in a special needs facility or a special school. We are proud of our reputation of being welcoming to children with special educational needs, but repeatedly schools have had to fight for resources to provides the services such children require. It is fundamental that resources should come with designation. Otherwise schools will simply use resources that should be allocated for the education of other children to provide such services. That scenario creates negative dynamics. I am very much in favour of the NABMSE's position that has been articulated here. Many of our schools are members of the NABMSE and Educate Together. As a result, the two organisations work closely together on this matter.

I wish to reiterate my main point that the system must change and that the State must take responsibility. In Lucan, Dublin 15, families apply to every one of the 12 schools in the area. Literally every child is registered with every school, which means that the schools do not know for sure what are the real preferences of the families. Therefore, they will allocate a number of places which will not be taken up and which must be reallocated sometimes four, five or six times before they find out the children who will arrive in September. The initiative that we have seen work in other jurisdictions involves a local authority or an ETB making an application process available with parents being allowed to indicate perhaps three or four preferences. The local authority or ETB can allocate places based on criteria such as quality, social needs, proximity and retention of the integrity of the family, etc. If the State was to adopt this regime, it would know the level of demand for different types of schooling, whether it be through the Irish language or otherwise. It would also for the first time start to allocate resources to meet the real needs of families in our society. We have to move ahead in that way. The State must think in a much more systemic way. As the population grows, the problem of the over-subscription of schools will be exacerbated. We must, therefore, find a much better way of managing the system as a whole. We ask the committee, particularly in the context of section 65 that refers to the power of the Minister to require boards of management to combine, to strengthen the provision to enable an area-based admissions system to be introduced with statutory backing.

Education Together wholeheartedly supports the EQUATE campaign on education equality. We fully support the campaign undertaken by Atheist Ireland, Ahmadiyya Muslims, minority Muslim community in Ireland, and Evangelical Alliance Ireland, the members of which are Christians. We also support the rights of the schools that teach through the medium of Irish. We fully support families who wish their children to access an education which involves full immersion in the Irish language. One of the founding schools, Gaelscoil an Ghoirt Álainn, is a member of Educate Together. We are very happy that that is the case.