Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There will be an admissions Bill. There is no doubt about that. It will go through the Oireachtas after the election because it has to; it is something that will be addressed. My predecessor, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, brought the Bill a long way and I brought it to the point of being published. I reject the claim that we have not been working on reform. A significant amount of reform was achieved in education under the previous Minister, Deputy Quinn, with which I have subsequently continued. Junior certificate reform is now being implemented in schools.

There is still an issue with one of the unions but it is being implemented.

The process of divestment has been slow. We are all disappointed about that but I have started a series of meetings in this respect. I met Education and Training Boards Ireland, ETBI, yesterday, I have met the Catholic bishops already and I will meet Educate Together and the Church of Ireland next week to work out how we can speed up divestment. These are significant changes. One has to work with the partners in education to make progress, but I reject the Deputy's suggestion that there has not been reform in the education area. The admissions issue in terms of the issue of religion was never going to be dealt with in the current Bill, as published, because it was not agreed in the programme for Government and it is not part of the published Bill. I am certain that admissions legislation will be brought forward after the next election regardless of whoever is in government. I am certain that at some stage in the near future the issue of religion will have to be dealt with, but it was not going to be dealt with in the current Bill. I am simply being realistic with respect to the Oireachtas timetable about bringing through the entire legislation before the next election.

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