Ms Sarah Lennon:

One of the campaigns we ran during the year was called "30 Days, 30 Stories". At the outset we wondered whether we would get 30 people to come forward. In fact we were inundated and were blown away by the response. We could have featured many more stories. We had to select the stories during the month but we continued to run them throughout the year. Each story was simply the human embodiment of discrimination against a four year old child.

I will read a few quotes from some of the testimonies that came forward. Lucy said that their employer, doctor or landlord could not use religion as an excuse to exclude them but their local school could. They do not want to leave Ireland but they may be forced to. Rebecca said that her son is only 18 months old. As a non-religious family, the worrying about what would happen began before he had even been born. Steph said that attending their local Catholic school means being faced with isolation within the classroom and being continually exposed to indoctrination of a faith that she does not believe in. Joseph asked who he was to say what his child's religion may or may not be one day. How could he determine for another human being what their relationship to a god will be or if they will have a god at all? Who gives a school the right to ask such a question? One of the many teachers who came forward, and all of them had to stay anonymous, said that teaching religion takes up two and a half hours per week, more than twice as much as the time spent on teaching science, geography, history, music, drama, art and physical education. We had more voices joining those brave parents who exposed themselves and their families in the pursuit of equality.

Education Equality believes that, both in terms of admissions and treatment during the school day, the State is in grave breach of its constitutional duty not to impose any disabilities or make any discrimination on the grounds of religion. Education Equality has proposed amendments to the Bill to bring about equal school access and the teaching of faith formation at the end of the school day, the latter to facilitate parents of all faiths and none in deciding if they wish to have their children attend such lessons. The Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016 provides a wonderful opportunity for change, but without these amendments it is not worthy of its title. We do not want to see this opportunity lost, possibly for many years.