Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 27 February 2024
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills
North-South Student Mobility: Discussion (Resumed)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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Is there any sense of a class-based system, a scourge we can be thankful to be more or less free from in the Republic of Ireland? Dr. Darmody spoke about Oxbridge and certain families having certain expectations. While I am not saying that there are not families in Ireland that have certain expectations about where their children are going to end up, I think the class system is more ingrained in an English context. I would not expect it to be as ingrained in Northern Ireland. I would expect things to be more egalitarian, as I hope we find here. However, I am not operating on the basis of any great research in saying that.