Ms Linda Rainsberry:

In preparing for appearing today, I researched the speech by Deputy Joan Burton on 28 June 2016 in introducing the Bill. I welcome her statement that it is not the intention of the Legislature to destroy the denominational character of schools or to end the participation of minority faiths in the education system. In that context, it is imperative that if the catchment area criterion is to be adopted, this must be a matter to be defined by each school in its statutory admissions policy as referenced by Deputy Burton in her speech.

I chair the board of Kilkenny College, which is a Church of Ireland voluntary secondary school. It is a co-educational boarding and day school with 846 students. Approximately half, 430, are boarding pupils and 416 are day pupils. The number of pupils has increased since we joined the free scheme in 2013 and we now have approximately 100 more pupils than we had before we joined the free scheme; that has been a success for the school. Approximately three quarters of the current pupil body are from the Protestant faith background.

Kilkenny College and Protestant schools in general have a proud tradition of welcoming others from outside their own faith traditions. Kilkenny College along with many other secondary schools is in an unusual position in that there are so few Protestant secondary schools in the 26 Counties. Kilkenny College is the only Protestant secondary school in County Kilkenny and it also serves families from the neighbouring counties of Carlow, Laois, Offaly, Kildare, Tipperary and Wexford. There is no alternative Protestant secondary school in any of those counties. There are 14 counties in Ireland without a Protestant secondary school. By definition, the Protestant secondary schools that exist must draw people from a very wide catchment area.

Kilkenny College is often referred to as the diocesan college for the diocese of Cashel, Ferns and Ossary because it is the only Church of Ireland secondary school within that diocese. Newtown School in Waterford in the diocese is a Society of Friends school. Our catchment area stretches beyond our diocese because we regularly take children from County Tipperary which is outside the diocese and towns such as Athy, Mountmellick, Roscrea, Birr or Tullamore, all of which are in different dioceses.

On a practical level, Kilkenny College is oversubscribed. The college admits 144 pupils in each first year. For the next year in which admissions are yet to be determined, 2018-19, we have 338 applications for first year, meaning almost two applicants for every place in the school. Therefore oversubscription is a very real problem for the college.

At both primary and more especially secondary level, Protestant parents who wish to have their children educated in their own faith must send their children to schools some distance away. Sometimes that distance is so great that the children require to board. Primary and secondary Protestant schools are a valuable focal point for an often-scattered minority group. It is there that children from Protestant backgrounds get to meet other children from Protestant backgrounds because they may be the only Protestant family living in their own neighbourhood. While they can obviously meet and form relationships through church, it is in the school that those connections and friendships, which are so essential for the survival of the faith, are formed and have a chance to grow affording the Protestant culture a real chance of surviving when it is divided among such a dispersed community.

As has been said here, the Constitution recognises the family as the primary educator of the child and makes particular mention of the rights of parents in the matter of religions and moral formation. In the light of the constitutional rights of parents, it is necessary that where the oversubscribed Protestant schools continue to be able to prioritise those of their own faith tradition notwithstanding that those pupils are travelling from very great distances away and which would not normally be considered a local area for a school.