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

I welcome the support of Senator Gallagher for the measure. Education is a very fluid and changing environment. Deputy Paul Murphy is correct that an education system being designed today would not be 95% composed of denominational schools. The question is whether such system would have no denominational schools, which the Deputy puts forward as the optimum situation. The wishes of parents must be taken into account in this matter. Parents are the primary educators. It is a strength of society that people wish to bring up their children in their ethos and faith. However, that must not make others feel small or not valued, etc. There is undoubtedly an imbalance in our education system. We are trying to change the system to reflect the changing Ireland without losing some of its strengths. The transfer of schools from religious to non-religious patrons must occur far more quickly. That is urgently needed and I have recently initiated a new approach to try to drive it forward.

Deputy Paul Murphy also raised the issue of whether ethos should be taken out of other areas, specifically relationship and sexuality education. Again, there are different views on that matter. Come what may, the proper, factual educational content must be delivered to every student, regardless of school ethos. In light of the concerns of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution and our inspectorate, we initiated a timely review of the delivery of relationship and sexuality education. The law has changed, as have many other matters. Deputy Paul Murphy brought forward the Provision of Objective Sex Education Bill 2018, which has passed First Stage. As I stated on Second Stage of the Bill, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, must undertake a broad consultation on the curriculum in order to gather expert views on the content of programmes and how they are delivered. Although I acknowledge the principle behind the legislation, stipulating curriculum content in primary legislation such that curricular evolution would require amendment of that legislation would probably not be ideal. However, we must get the view of the NCCA on this matter and allow education stakeholders an input into the discussion in order to be able to make decisions based on the best expertise because it is vital that we get this right. The NCCA is proceeding with all possible haste in that regard. It realises the urgency the Oireachtas attaches to the issue but it will do a thorough job. We have a robust system for the development of curricular change. It is an evolving space and we must consider how to ensure that religious ethos does not prevent proper progress. That is a challenge which we must meet.