Dr. Niall Muldoon:

On the education system, if we could start again, we certainly would. The system is old and antiquated.

It was built around a charitable system whereby the religious provided the services and we were grateful for it. When I talk my colleagues in Europe, they laugh at the concept that the Department of Education does not have control of schools in the way it should. I wrote to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2015 looking for a recalibration, as I call it, where the Department must have oversight of those sorts of schools at a much more local level so it can take control, forward plan and be held accountable. This allows about four different steps for disassociation of responsibility. That is wrong. Again, that is where we need to go.

I do not think we need to look at a constitutional referendum. There is a constitutional right under Article 42.4, which allows the right to education for our children. We need to just follow through on that in a child-centred manner. The education system is for our children, not our schools, patrons or the Department of Education. It is for our children. We need to put them at the heart of it, listen to them and make sure that they all have the system they deserve. That is the crucial way forward.