Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this topic for discussion. I commend the Department of Education and Skills and its Ministers for the recently published School Completers - What Next? and early school leavers reports which are enlightening and provide the up-to-date detail required by those of us interested in education, particularly equality in education. Both reports highlight the level of work in which we, as a Parliament, need to engage to bring about equality in education, particularly at second level. They indicate the disadvantages for children of working class families in not completing second level education and highlight the difficulties they experience in accessing third level education, universities in particular. They also vindicate my view which I have held all of my adult life that the State should not be providing financial support for the small number of private schools operating in the country. The reports clearly state this gives children attending fee paying schools the edge in that they are three times more likely to access third level education than children from working class backgrounds who attend schools in working class areas. If we are to ensure equality in education, this funding must cease.

In regard to the continued subsidisation of private schools, I have previously pointed out to the Minister that, for all that is said about discrimination in Northern Ireland, private schools there do not receive one cent of taxpayers' money; rather, they operate independently. That is how it should be here. I am opposed to the State subsidising private schools. If we are to ensure fairness in second level education, the subsidisation of private schools must end.

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