Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I take the point Deputy Byrne is making about arrangements for children who do not wish to participate in the religious programme. As we discussed earlier, many schools are in very different positions. There may be something in this space and I would be willing to come back and consider this on Report Stage. What we ought to be trying to do is not be prescriptive. We should not set regulations and say, "That is it". As Deputy Martin suggested, we should try to encourage a process of change through the parents and teachers charter, the requirement to state their policies and so on. There may be something in this space that we could do, and I would be happy to revert on that.

Amendment No. 46 is probably already encompassed by what we are doing.

There was a question on the reason for the 25% criteria. It was an attempt to try to strike a reasonable ground. A view was expressed that priority should not be given to children of past pupils on the grounds that everyone should be equal. On the other hand, it seems that continuity within the school and having the sort of association that grows up with various community activities that are built around the school and that parents are involved in and were involved in when they were students in the school, is favourable. There is a reasonable sense of continuity that we ought to promote, namely, that that school community is a reasonable concept. It was to try to identify a reasonable level at which this could be set that would be fair to both arguments and strike a reasonable balance so that we would set a ceiling.Prior to this there was no ceiling. This measure is introducing a ceiling where there was none previously and trying to set it at a level that would be reasonable. There is no science involved in it particularly, but is an effort to set something that is a reasonable balance of the two views of the world.