Ms Asiya Al-Tawash:

We did not realise there was an invitation; we had not seen it.

The Muslim Primary Education Board is a voluntary body which represents Muslim primary schools in Dublin, but it also seeks to speak on behalf of the thousands of Muslim children attending school in Ireland. According to the 2011 census, there were almost 50,000 Muslims living in Ireland, including over 8,000 children in primary schools and 3,500 in secondary schools. The vast majority of these children attend local schools, but in recent years parents have found it increasingly difficult to obtain school places for their children, particularly in the secondary sector.

The current estimate of the Muslim population in Ireland is approximately 65,000, which represents an increase of almost 30% since 2011. This is an indicator that the numbers of Muslim children entering the education system are growing very rapidly. Parents have encountered a number of problems at the point of admission to schools. They include the requirement to have a baptismal certificate. Anecdotal evidence indicates that many non-practising Catholic parents, people of no faith, as well as Muslim parents, face the same obstacle. While other parents can, if they so wish, obtain a baptismal certificate, this is not an option for Muslims. From the outset it is an obstacle for the Muslim community.

The current admission policy may also ignore local catchment areas in preference of admitting children of a particular faith. Under the current system, schools have refused Muslim children from feeder schools, siblings who have established links with the school and children in local catchment areas, citing school admission policies that prioritise the children of one faith over another. The situation is that the majority of schools in Ireland have a Catholic ethos, leaving Muslim children at the mercy of admission policies that seriously curtail parental and student choice. Many Muslim parents, especially from newer communities, are unfamiliar with the Irish education system which causes additional barriers in understanding varied and unclear admission policies.

The implications of the policy are the imposition of seriously limited choice for parents and students and inequality of access to education, which may lead to long-term implications with regard to the exclusion of Muslims in Ireland from social, economic and civic engagement. A number of psychological reports indicate a link between educational achievement and a child's sense of belonging. A feeling of being excluded or unwanted is not conducive to integration or a child's well-being. Those schools with a more open admission policy, which we welcome, are left to cater for large groups of Muslim students, instead of integration being encouraged throughout the school system.

The Minister's recent proposals contain some elements which the Muslim Primary Education Board would support. The removal of the baptismal requirement would allow a more equitable basis of admission and the establishment of catchment areas allowing Muslim students to attend their local schools. When children from the same locality attend school together it creates a bond, strengthens local communities and encourages religious diversity and cultural tolerance. It would also prohibit the practice of maintaining an ethos by preferring children from outside a catchment area. The maintenance of a school's ethos should not be based on 100% of the student population being of one faith. Rather, it needs to reflect the diversity in Irish society. An admission policy should safeguard and respect the child's rights to religious practice.

We would like to clearly state that parents and students should have a choice with regard to religious and non-religious education. To ignore the religious ethos of any school as a blanket policy is not a strategy we would support. We firmly believe the way forward in education should be to seek a balance between ethos and diversity. A school community should reflect wider society in its pupil cohort and its staff.