Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Anti-Austerity Alliance Deputies on putting forward this legislation. I also commend the Government on announcing it is not opposing the Bill. However, I urge the Minister of State, Deputy Ó Ríordáin, to resist the temptation that the Bill sits forever on Committee Stage and ends up dying with this Dáil as it comes to a close.

It is a surprising turn by the Government, which has repeatedly stated it could not delete section 37 due to constitutional issues and instead advocated that it should be amended. While this Bill amends section 37, it replaces it with wording which makes it clear that discrimination on any grounds by religious organisations or bodies under the direction or control of a religious organisation is unacceptable. It will be illegal to give less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, membership of the Traveller community, disability or race. In essence, the Bill presents a cultural move away from the notion that public service providers such as schools, hospitals and clinics are institutions which hold special privilege when it comes to applying the principles of equality. We have deemed the marriage institution as incapable of discriminating against LGBT relationships and now it is time to extend that protection to other institutions.

The Bill addresses the wider issue of the relationship between the church and the State. The Catholic Church is still patron to almost 90% of Ireland's primary schools. Ireland is essentially experiencing a crisis in education provision, providing only one option for parents, an option which includes an ethos that is not reflective of the multicultural and modern society we see today.

I want to focus on the consequences of this section on education and, in particular, on children in the schools that are affected by it. A very important point to make is that while the section discriminates against potential employees or current employees, employees at least have the freedom to move. Children have less mobility, physically and emotionally. They do not have the freedom to question authority, hold it to account or pick and choose where they feel they would be best educated. It is imperative, therefore, that we provide them with the safest, most inclusive environment in the schools they attend. This is only possible if the educational institution's ethos is inclusive and promotes diversity and equality. Currently this is not reflected through the management of our educational system. The parish priest still effectively manages the board of management of national schools. The diocese nominates three members, including the chairperson, to the board of management. There are two teacher representatives on the board. The board is stacked in favour of the ethos because the teachers may not feel they can challenge it if they are to protect their jobs.

I am a member of the board of management in my local school in Killybegs. The school has a very inclusive ethos and it works very well. The board of management works on that basis. There have never been any issues or questions about inclusion or anything such as that in the school. At the same time, the legislation is still there in the background and the chilling effect, a phrase I hate, is often talked about. We have to deal with it.

If this Bill were passed, it would ensure a more equal environment for prospective employees and current employees. Section 37, as far as I know, has not been challenged and we all know that on the surface schools seem fairly relaxed about imposing the Catholic ethos on employment procedures. However, discrimination can be and often is silent. How many promotions were passed over because an employee did not fit the profile due to his or her sexuality, beliefs or ethnicity? How can we truly know the full consequences of section 37 if discrimination of this kind is protected in legislation?

The enactment of this Bill would ensure a more equal environment for children and the students who attend the schools affected by it.

Children cannot interview a prospective teacher or sit on a board of management, so they must place their trust in the adults in their surroundings. If those adults practise principles of equality they are certain to benefit from that, as people will be hired to teach based on their ability and not on allegiance to a particular ethos. It would also ensure greater transparency in the hiring process, ensuring that people of non-faith or minority religious backgrounds and publicly identified LGBT people are not deterred from training or taking up employment as teachers in the State. This was stated in the current Government's programme for Government as one of its commitments.

There are a number of contradictions surrounding section 37. The Equal Status Act protects an individual from discrimination on the basis of the grounds as outlined in the wording of this proposed new Bill, but the individual is not protected from discrimination when it comes to certain religious organisations or bodies controlled by them. The original Bill is also in contradiction to the anti-bullying action plan of the Department of Education and Skills, which promotes a transparent, accessible approach to reporting bullying, with the full engagement of the board of management of the school. To add to the contradiction, there are competing rights involved, including freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, the right to privacy and to earn a living, freedom of expression and conscience and the right to freedom from harassment and discrimination. The constitutional obligation on the State to vindicate the personal rights of citizens is also included and has caused division in approaches to the section.

I wish to stress that the right to education, something I pursued in my proposed economic, cultural and social rights Bill, is a fundamental right our children deserve. However, they are lost among the competing rights because for some reason we do not see them as citizens. We cannot forget that they are citizens. For as long as the Government outsources its education provision to the Catholic Church, the patronage system will view education as an indoctrination of teachings and of religious ethos. This bears a heavy weight on LGBT children. The legacy of such teachings has chilled the environment enough to halt or restrict the experience of childhood, and its transition into adulthood.

This has restricted many teachers too. As the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, INTO, has indicated, 90 teachers have emerged as LGBT and it predicts that many more may come out in the wake of the success of the marriage referendum. We cannot resist the fact that in many parts of the country, although not all, there is a growing demand for non-denominational education. Immigration and emigration have contributed to the transformation of our monocultural society. With children coming from many different backgrounds, we must ensure that they are all equal in the eyes of the State, and this can only be done if our education system is equal.

I take this opportunity to thank BeLonG To, and especially its director, Michael Barron. The organisation has campaigned on section 37 for the past 12 years and has seen this issue come and go under previous Governments. BeLonG To has also been involved with four other Private Members' Bills that have been brought before the Dáil and Seanad in an attempt to address what we are trying to address in section 37, but to no avail. I welcome the fact that the Government has not declined its support, but I urge it to keep section 37 on the agenda. I also urge the Department of Education and Skills to maintain a strong focus on the implementation of its anti-bullying action plan in schools. Greater resources are required to ensure it is effective in every school in Ireland. Now that the Government has identified areas to tackle homophobic bullying in primary and post-primary schools, it must ensure its application and monitor the success of its take-up. Perhaps the Government would indicate any plans it has to review that implementation and to assess the effectiveness of the plan.

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