Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Would it surprise Mr. Curtis and Dr. Gormley to learn that in a survey of school students conducted by the Irish Second–Level Students Union students were asked to rate their experience of relationships and sexuality education on a scale of one to five, with one being terrible and five being excellent, and that approximately 45% rated it at one, with 25% or so rating it at two or completely unsatisfactory? Almost three quarters of students found their experience of sex education to be at least extremely unsatisfactory. Some 87% of students surveyed found that LGBTQ+ relationships were not discussed sufficiently. Some 25% or so said contraception was not mentioned at all.

Mr. Curtis referred to the document Familiaris consortioas informing how schools with a Catholic ethos would deliver relationships and sexuality education. Does he agree with the views set out which I will quote and does he think they should inform how sex education is delivered? It states:

In this context education for chastity is absolutely essential, for it is a virtue that develops a person's authentic maturity and makes him or her capable of respecting and fostering the "nuptial meaning" of the body. Indeed Christian parents, discerning the signs of God's call, will devote special attention and care to education in virginity or celibacy as the supreme form of that self-giving that constitutes the very meaning of human sexuality ... For this reason the Church is firmly opposed to an often widespread form of imparting sex information dissociated from moral principles. That would merely be an introduction to the experience of pleasure and a stimulus leading to the loss of serenity - while still in the years of innocence - by opening the way to vice.

Does that inform how sex education is delivered in schools with a Catholic ethos? If we had a curriculum which was, in the view of the bishop, supposedly objective and not informed by a religious ethos, would the schools under the delegates' management, in their opinion, have the legal right not to deliver some of that curriculum if it was found to go against the ethos set out in, for example, Familiaris consortio?

The final question is for Dr. Gormley. Atheist Ireland has carried out some research, while we have raised some of these cases in the Dáil with reference to education and training board, ETB, schools, for example, in County Tipperary which state they have a Roman Catholic ethos. How can the ETB ensure the professed Roman Catholic ethos does not interfere with the delivery of objective sex education?