Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I appeal to any Government Deputies who want to speak on this to respect the fact that an amendment has been tabled and we want to vote on it, namely on the specific proposal to remove this obnoxious discrimination against children in our schools. Please do not talk down the clock so we are forced to vote on the Bill as a whole because we support it, but we want the elimination of an absolutely obnoxious and unacceptable discrimination against children included in it. The essence of discrimination is that one group gets precedence over others and that is happening in our schools. Young children are being discriminated against based on their religious belief or lack of religious belief or because of the family's religion or religious belief, which overlaps heavily with their ethnic background because of the new communities coming to Ireland. It is absolutely unacceptable.

The Government has no excuse but to remove that discrimination if it means what it says when it claims it is in favour of equality. Will the Minister of State and the Government side please allow the vote to happen and not talk down the clock?

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