Ms Áine Lynch:

We must be careful about saying legislation will fix this. We have a lot of legislation, some of which is not being enforced. At present it is not permissible for schools to request enrolment fees but we know schools do it. One can say we must introduce legislation, or the legislators must fix this, but the major issue is the cultural shift required. We must examine how to change the relationship between schools and parents to one about the education of children and school communities. If we accept schools are not funded sufficiently then school communities, and not parents, should examine the funding issues. At present, the shortfall is met through parents' associations, individual parents, voluntary contributions and other means, but parents' associations and parents should be taken out of the picture. They could become part of a funding committee in a school to examine shortfalls, but the relationship between parents and schools must change from being a dialogue of finance to one of education.