Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Yes. Basically, what we are providing for here is that every school must have in its admission policy a statement that relates back to the equality legislation so that it has to provide that it will not discriminate on grounds of gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation and so on. That includes the Traveller community grounding of a student. It provides that the school must have a statement that states that it does not discriminate on the grounds of someone being a Traveller. There is nothing in the Bill that stops a school giving priority to the Traveller community. Therefore, it is our view that the Deputy's amendment is not necessary. A school is perfectly entitled to give priority to a Traveller if that is what the school chooses to do. There is nothing in the Bill that stops that.

In the case of homelessness, it is slightly different in that homelessness is not a category in the equality legislation at the moment, but again there is nothing to stop a school providing in this area. The equality legislation does not contain any ground relating to the housing status of a person. However, amendment No. 12 appears to require a school to state that it does not discriminate under equality legislation on that ground. Having regard to amendment No. 83, I do not think the amendment as worded is necessarily what the Deputy is trying to achieve. With regard to providing for regulations that set out that schools be required to prioritise children from homeless families, I am not aware of any calls for such an approach but I can confirm that I am willing to look at this matter. If it is clear that such an approach is needed, I will consider it.