Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

I will share time with Deputy Timmins.

In the litany of statements today we have heard expressions of sadness, disappointment and, wholly justified in the circumstances, anger. The debate may to some extent have helped to obscure rather than illuminate the issues we are here to discuss. I do not doubt we are talking about a pre-eminent religious organisation in this State. We must not lose sight of the role of the State in delegating and abrogating its authority in respect of the interests of its citizens, whose tragic circumstances are described in the Ferns Report. This House must take its share of the collective responsibility for the problems.

In 1972, the people of the State voted to remove the Roman Catholic Church's special position in the Constitution. That change to the Constitution was not followed through with further legislation. The Ferns Report makes clear that the level of deference that was shown to that church by the agencies of the State remained unaltered, unfortunately. Some 25 years after that referendum, State institutions like the Garda Síochána and the health boards acted in a deferential and reverent manner in their dealings with that church, rather than taking the action that should have been taken. It is a source of huge disappointment to me that Irish society did not progress in the manner it should have after 1972. I see signs in today's debate of continuing residues of deference towards the Roman Catholic Church. For example, most Deputies have spoken about "the church", obviously referring to the largest religious organisation in this country. When one considers that its membership includes the vast majority of the Members of the Oireachtas and the citizens of this country, regardless of whether they practise their religious beliefs, it is obvious the Roman Catholic Church is this country's predominant and pre-eminent religious organisation.

The Ferns Report is a damning indictment of the State's failure to put in place a clear distinction between its role and that of the religious organisations. As it tries to prevent further actions which might lead to the publication of future reports like the Ferns Report, the House should be clear about how that distinction needs to be made. The circumstances in which the Roman Catholic Church continues to provide health, education and social services which the State is unwilling to provide must be open to question. In providing many such services and advocating positions of social justice, the Roman Catholic Church articulates positions of real social justice of which the Government has lost sight. That church can be over-concerned about matters of sexual propriety, however. The contents of reports like the Ferns Report have demonstrated to us that the Roman Catholic Church no longer has any moral justification for using its influential position in Irish society to make such arguments.

When we discuss the Roman Catholic Church, we are not talking about "the church" but about "a church". I am concerned about the State's role and relations with that church. I question that church's future role in the educational system. I would like to ask the Minister for Education and Science, who has left the Chamber, why it continues to be the case, 33 years after the constitutional referendum to which I referred, that the patronage of the vast bulk of our national schools is automatically vested in this particular church. Why should we not have a debate on how we can make our educational system more democratic?

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