Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I hope to bring forward this legislation at an early date. Considerable work has been done on it within the Department. The Constitution provides that the State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator is the family and it provides for the rights of parents. It then goes on to say under Article 44 that the State shall not impose any disabilities or discrimination on the grounds of religious profession. Legislation providing State aid for schools shall not discriminate between schools under the management of different religious denominations. They have the right to manage their own affairs etc.

There are rights to be balanced in introducing legislation in this area. I look forward to discussing with the committee of the Dáil how best we should do this. There is no doubt that we need to improve admission policies, given that there are some practices that I believe parents find particularly difficult. We need to bring more clarity to the way admissions policy is implemented, which would be the purpose of the legislation. It would, for example, outlaw having long waiting lists, which would clearly discriminate against someone who had only recently moved into an area. There are many issues we need to deal with. I look forward to meeting the committee to discuss them.

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