Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

On 8 April RTE broadcast a "Prime Time" programme about the new community primary school model that operates in Dublin. It featured footage from Scoil Choilm community national school in Porterstown. After it was broadcast a number of complaints about the programme were made to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. I watched the programme. It had footage of the pupils and teachers in the school. Various people were interviewed followed by a panel discussion involving Paul Rowe, the chief executive of Educate Together, and a representative of the Catholic Church. Without knowing more detail of the programme, from the outset I felt it was very unfair and unbalanced. The manner in which it used footage of the children in their classes in the school was unethical. It showed footage depicting the segregation of students within a class, which was staged. RTE insisted that the teachers did that for the purposes of the camera that was filming in the class, which was disgraceful. One parent was featured in that footage. That person was not a parent of one of the children in the school but was a parent who had nothing to do with the school who was campaigning for an Educate Together school in the area. The background of some of the people featured in the programme was revealed but the background of some of the other people who were critical of the school model was not revealed in the programme or in the panel discussion afterwards.

Although the programme was about the VEC model of national school and about a particular school, the VEC was not invited to take part in the panel discussion afterwards. Instead it had a representative of an educational body that is campaigning for a particular model of school and in reality is in competition with the VEC for school patronage. That is fair enough given that education is about choice and so on. A representative of the Catholic Church was also on the panel. Those were two people not directly connected with the school, resulting in a very unbalanced discussion among the panel afterwards. That was not the fault of the members of the panel but the fault of the makers of the "Prime Time" programme.

RTE needs to review how it carries out some of those "Prime Time" programmes. The programme used footage of primary schoolchildren in a programme that denigrated the school they attended. The parents and the teachers in the school were very angry and upset about the programme.

Subsequently, the parents were reported in the local media as being happy with the school. Those parents, teachers and children have invested time and interest in that school which is a pilot school. Just as Educate Together and the Catholics schools have had to change their model as they went along and learned how certain aspects did not work and to try something new, I presume it will be same for this school model. Those parents are working for that school and the way RTE made the programme was a disgrace.

One of the local media outlets, Community Voice, interviewed the principal and some of the parents from the school. The principal, Teresa Lowe, said she did not think the programme was fair or equitable in its depiction of the school. She felt RTE had a particular agenda in making the programme and that the presenter, Emma O'Kelly, portrayed the situation from her own perspective to underpin that agenda. Mr. Michael Guilfoyle, a parent with a daughter in the school, told Community Voice that the programme implied there was segregation in the school and division between the children based on their religious beliefs. This is the complete opposite of what the school stands for. The principal pointed out that although she was interviewed for half an hour, none of that interview was used in the programme. The only local parent interviewed has no children in the school and had been involved in an unsuccessful attempt to set up an Educate Together school in the area some years ago.

It is on record that Emma O'Kelly specifically asked the teachers to set up the separation of the children for her to film and, according to the principal, "then presented it as if it were a regular event and as an example of segregation and division in the school". The whole thing was stage-managed to present a very wrong impression of the school.

Another parent stated that this school helps children understand other religions and beliefs which means they can bring this understanding into the wider world. That needs to be noted because I do not know if there will be any further coverage regarding that programme or what will happen as a result of complaints made to the broadcasting authority. Many people would have watched that programme and taken it to be fact. I took a look at it and could see it was unbalanced but some people have expressed comments to me that indicate they took the programme to be factual and a fair presentation of the situation. It was not. RTE must look at that issue again.

To return to the general debate we must ask what is important to people. I am a politician, who, before I had a child in school, dealt with many parents who were trying to get their children into school in the Lucan area. If we were to do a survey on this, the most important point for people would be to have local schools. They campaign to have access to a local school and to have a school place. They want a good school. People are moving towards a preference for co-education and there is also a growing demand for multi-denomational schools. Parents want their schools to be inclusive and their children to be educated to be good people. That is the ethos concerning which most people would have common ground - a good education. I agree with this. In practice, and from my experience, many if not most Catholic schools are, in effect, multi-cultural and many are even multi-denominational. They are good schools; the parents work hard for them and, in most cases, the teachers provide a good education. Obviously, there are particular examples that can be used to oppose this but it is my experience and I believe it to be the reality. Catholic schools have contributed a great deal to our educational system and we must acknowledge that. That is not to say there are not issues that must be addressed.

In terms of how we move forward, the Labour Party's idea of a forum on patronage is the way. One cannot simply say, "That's it. Let's get rid of the church out of education". That would be wrong. That is not the way to deal with issues. One brings on board and involves the stakeholders. A forum on patronage would be a way to do that, involving the Catholic Church, which has so much to provide in terms of experience and the work it does, and, similarly, the Church of Ireland schools and people from different faiths and of none, agnostics or atheists. Everybody has a contribution to make to this debate and we all have common ground. Ultimately, we all want our children to be educated well and to turn out as kind good people.

I do not wish to pre-empt any discussion that will take place but I am in favour of a State model of national education. People talk as if we have never dealt with these issues before but at second level the vocational educational committee has been putting forward multi-denomational and co-educational education for years and has been really successful in bringing on board the different faiths. In my area there are the Church of Ireland and the Catholic Church, and now there are Muslims and other faiths. The VEC has brought in those involved and has developed community schools and community college models where one might be the child of a doctor or a plumber, or someone who otherwise might drop out of school early. The VEC tries to cater for all those people and has been a successful model. It produced our recent Oscar winner who came from Ballyfermot College of Further Education. It is possible to do this because it has been done at second level. We should try to do something similar at primary level.

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