Dáil debates
Tuesday, 6 October 2015
Other Questions
School Patronage
3:55 pm
Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source
Contrary to an article in The Irish Timestoday by Fintan O'Toole which stated only one school had been divested, eight schools have been divested, namely, Tramore Educate Together national school, ETNS, County Waterford, Trim ETNS, County Meath, Malahide-Portmarnock ETNS, Kinsealy, County Dublin, Newtownwhite ETNS, Ballina, County Mayo, Canalway ETNS, Basin Lane, Dublin 8, Tuam ETNS, County Galway, New Ross ETNS, and Gaelscoil na Laochra, Birr, County Offaly. A significant number of the schools come under the new demographics. It is disappointing, and this is why I want to meet the bishops soon and find out whether there is anything we can do to assist the process and to identify the obstacles and difficulties. Much of the delay is probably due to the attachment people have to their local schools, given that it must be done on a voluntary basis. If there is any way we can assist, I would like to speed up the process.
Michelle Rogers
Posted on 24 Oct 2015 3:01 pm (Report this comment)
Surely the Government - in the knowledge that it is failing in its responsibility to provide for the education of so many Irish citizens - has the prerogative to allocate funding to more inclusive education providers, even where that would mean taking funding away from some denominational providers? No organisation surely has a RIGHT to state funding. Can the Government not be nice and give the church time, but a definite deadline, to amalgamate schools in areas where there is no non-religious school, and hand over school buildings to the state or other patrons like Educate Together? The Minister talks as if she is somehow beholden to the church, rather than overseeing a massive budget that it is her job to allocate fairly in the interests of all citizens.