Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

The net point is that if a person who qualifies under the CAO points system to train as a teacher in one of the Roman Catholic teaching colleges, which are entirely endowed by the State through taxpayers' money, requests on freedom of conscience grounds to opt out of the religious modules of a teacher training course, does he or she have a right, in conscience and under the Constitution and regulations governing the Department, to participate in that teacher training course and graduate without being compulsorily required to do the teacher training modules in areas of religion, faith formation and, specifically, to take classes for holy communion and confirmation?

See this speech in context