Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This is potentially an excessively wide section, which will defeat the aim of many here which is to ensure people can go to their local school in particular, notwithstanding the fact they may not be of the religion of that local school, if the school has a religious ethos but is publicly funded. We tabled amendment No. 23 which, surprisingly to me and I may get an explanation later from the officials, has been ruled out of order. We reference catchment in the amendment because it is the essential point. The point about all of this discussion is if in the catchment area there is very large demand for places and there is a school of religious denomination, of course that school of religious denomination is entitled to serve the ethos of its religionists in so far as it is required to maintain the ethos of the school. This is set out in the Constitution. However, this does not mean the school can have such a wide catchment area that the children living across the road from the school can be denied a place while children from very far and wide are accepted for a place. This is what the baptism barrier is about and it is the point the Minister is seeking to duck. It is a balance between preserving and ensuring the ethos of a school and allowing children in a locality, who may not be of that ethos, to access the school in reasonable numbers without preventing the school from preserving its ethos. Both of these are addressed in the Constitution. This is what the Labour Party legislation, which the Minister decided to deep-freeze for a year, set out to achieve. I do not understand, given all of the various amendments which have been accepted, why amendment No. 23 has been ruled out of order. The Minister's section does not mention catchment. Without catchment it is ridiculous, because catchment is what it is about. This is absurd.