Ms Roisin Marshall:

I will kick off on this question. There are Catholic-maintained schools and controlled schools. Most Catholic parents choose Catholic education by default, even though the Protestant Churches transferred their schools over in 1947. The majority of controlled schools, then, are those from a perceived Protestant background. There is of course diversity within all of those schools as well. In general, however, Catholic parents do not choose controlled school education. There are anomalies. That is where we are at the moment.

Integrated schools deliberately, proactively and intentionally strive for a balance between Catholics, Protestants and others within their schools. Some people ask why that is necessary. Our answer is to ask why we needed something similar in respect of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, PSNI. We sometimes need to do these things to ensure people have a voice. Research shows that once we go below 10%, sometimes people get very quiet and feel they do not have a voice. We deliberately try, therefore, to create schools that have an equal, or balanced, pupil population and board of governors. That is an important distinction to make.

Catholic-maintained schools have a number of Catholic trustees on every school board. Controlled schools have had transfers from the three main churches: the Presbyterian Church, the Methodist Church and the Church of Ireland. In every controlled school of nine governors, for example, almost half, four of those nine, will be from the transferrers, that is from the Protestant churches. The governors set the culture and strategic direction of the school. They also, however, determine what happens within the school. We suggest that what makes integrated schools different is that they strive to have a balance within their board of governors. That means, therefore, that all of the children will see their culture and tradition reflected in the governing body and in the staff. Does that answer Senator Ó Donnghaile's question?