Mr. John Curtis:

I thank the committee for the invitation. Committee members will be glad to know I will not go through what we submitted in full detail. I will give an abridged version and take questions afterwards. I am conscious everybody has a copy of our submission. I am joined by my colleague, the president of the Joint Management Body, Fr. Paul Connell.

The JMB was founded in 1972 to represent the interests of all voluntary secondary schools in the Republic of Ireland. It is the main decision-making and negotiating body for the management authorities of almost 380 voluntary secondary schools. The JMB comprises two founding organisations, namely, the Association of Management of Catholic Secondary Schools, AMCSS, and the Irish School Heads' Association, ISA, which represents Protestant schools in the State.

With a combined enrolment of more than 185,000 students, admission policies and practices in voluntary secondary schools can only be described as inclusive, compliant and, essentially, unproblematic. It is the position of the JMB that the results of the Department's audit of enrolment policies in 2008, indicating no evidence of any system-wide enrolment practices that give rise to concern, should inform the present consideration, and the high levels of integrity with which our schools have been exercising their responsibilities should be acknowledged. Only 20% of our schools are oversubscribed. The JMB believes the existing system works well, with relatively few section 29 appeals against refusal to enrol each year, of which only a small proportion are successful.

In the context of oversubscription challenges, no legislation can change the fact that in some areas throughout the country there is a shortage of school places. We acknowledge this. We maintain that schools, like families, are not solely operational entities. They thrive on relationships, values, continuity, local community cohesion and loyalties built up over time. Allowance must be made for this at local operational level. We accept that oversubscription is a difficult issue. There cannot, and never will, be general agreement on the fairest criteria in these circumstances. Appropriate weight must be given to the principle of subsidiarity, which suggests matters ought to be handled by the most local competent authority, in this case the school board of management.

With regard specifically to the proposed amendment, the JMB very much welcomes the State's requirement for every school to have a transparent and legally compliant enrolment policy, although it should be noted that catchment might be problematic in our sector. The proposed amendment does not appear to directly challenge the constitutional protections afforded to either the denominational character of a school or the right of the pupil not to attend religious instruction. It does, however, introduce the notion of the separability of religious instruction from the secular. The JMB sees this distinction as completely untenable in terms of the lived out ethos of the school. Faith schools intentionally set out to permeate the day to day life of their schools with a set of values, relationships, visible reminders, policies and curricular frameworks which cannot be divided into religious versus secular paradigms.

We are very grateful to have the opportunity to engage in this debate. Like my colleagues Dr. Fennelly and Mr. Mulconry, we very much look forward to engagement with the Minister on the admission to schools Bill because much teasing out needs to be done before we proceed with it.