Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The Taoiseach did not answer my question. I asked who sought the Attorney General's advice and what question he was asked. The solution is to reinstate the grant, as pointed out by Deputy Brian Hayes yesterday. The block grant is irrelevant to the issue.

Today's The Irish Times quotes Archbishop Neil's remarks at yesterday's diocesan synod where he stated, "It was driven by what amounts to a very determined and doctrinaire effort within the Department of Education and Science to strike at a sector which some officials totally failed to understand." Furthermore, he stated, "It is only now that what was once seen as realism in relation to different and complex situations is being described simply as 'an anomaly'." He also made the point that previous governments had treated these schools in a fair manner and that the same cannot be said of the present Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition. The Taoiseach's Minister for Education and Science has caused this problem.

I understand from the Department of Finance that it is not a question of the extra grants for the fee-paying Protestant schools but of the fact that the Department of Education and Science lost its case against Protestant schools last year.

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