Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This divestment of patronage in schools was initiated by a former Minister for Education and Skills, former Deputy Ruairí Quinn. The Archbishop of Dublin pointed out that the Catholic Church has too many schools and wishes to divest numbers of these to other patrons, whether that was Educate Together or whatever. That process did not measure up to the targets that the Minister had in mind because of practical difficulties and circumstances in different places around the country.

It is perfectly in order for any patron to express the wish to have its ethos in its own school. It is important to note that is the issue here. The basic aim of the Government is to use economic success to create a fair and compassionate society, and education is involved as one of the areas in that regard. The Government is anxious to provide more choice for parents and we are determined to make it easier for parents, particularly parents whose children are not Catholic, to enrol their children in multidenominational schools where they wish to do so. That is why the programme for Government commits to reaching 400 non-denominational and multidenominational schools by 2030. That is an ambitious target and it represents more than a tripling of the current rate of transfer of Catholic schools to multidenominational patrons.

The Minister, Deputy Bruton, has articulated a strategy for how he plans to deliver on that and he wants to implement it. Providing additional multidenominational schools is the quickest and most straightforward way of dealing with the very complex issue of providing choice for parents. It is important to note that this issue only arises in respect of 20% of schools that are oversubscribed.

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