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

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after “That” and substitute the following:"Dáil Éireann resolves that the Bill be deemed to be read a second time this day twelve months, to allow for scrutiny between now and then by the Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills and for the Committee to consider submissions and hold hearings that have regard in particular to ensure that:

(a) the proposed Bill strikes a balanced and measured approach in relation to competing rights;

(b) the proposed Bill does not give rise to any unintended consequences that create any adverse impact on the schools of minority denominations;

(c) the issue of catchment areas for schools will be examined, with due respect to the importance of established geographic boundaries and organisation, as well as having taken into regard experience in other jurisdictions and the views of stakeholders;

(d) the proposed Bill takes account of any impacts and distortion on school transport policy and provision; and

(e) the proposed Bill does not give rise to Constitutional difficulties;

and to fully discuss and explore other practical issues and consequences that may arise as a result of the proposals, and further agrees that the Bill would proceed separately from the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill, scheduled to be published by Government this term.".

I welcome the tabling of the Bill by Deputy Joan Burton. It is important legislation. Contrary to what the Deputy inferred, I am keen that progress be made in this area. I did not say I was not keen to progress the legislation; rather, I have always said I was keen to work with the committee to advance legislation in this sphere. That is because when the education committee has examined this issue in the past, it recognised that there were difficult legal and constitutional issues that had to be balanced. This is not a simple issue but a complex one. None the less, it is important, and I am very keen to progress the work. That is the spirit in which this amendment is put forward.

I am very keen to progress other areas where choice for parents can be genuinely opened up. I will push ahead with the admissions Bill, on which a great deal of work was done by Deputy Jan O'Sullivan when she occupied the post I now have. She did a great deal of good work, including pre-legislative scrutiny. The Bill did not include a provision of this nature. There is a lot of established work with which we can progress. The admissions Bill is well worth pursuing. It will bring extra clarity and definition to the area and be good for parents. I am also determined to push ahead with a plan to build on the work of Deputy Jan O'Sullivan and her predecessor, Ruairí Quinn, to expand the number of multidenominational schools available in our system. We have set a target of 400 over 15 years, which will represent a considerable acceleration of the pace of transfer. Clearly, a great deal of work will go into that.

Deputy Burton rightly pointed out that there are huge numbers of patrons, students and boards out there doing fantastic work. It is my genuine belief that they deserve the opportunity to attend hearings held by the Oireachtas committee and make their input. This is an issue that will have an impact on many schools and they need to have a chance to assess it and inform us in the Oireachtas of the potential impact it might have. There is a strong case to be made that children should not be unreasonably refused access to their local schools. That has been well articulated by Deputy Burton and others. In particular, oversubscribed schools should not routinely pass over local children to admit children of their own denominations where those children have options in their own areas. That is a principle that informed Deputy Burton's Bill. It is vital that we provide for the consultation that a proposal of this nature involves. Everyone has recognised that there are legal and constitutional issues, and in her own presentation Deputy Burton picked her way carefully through them to ensure that she respected them. It is very important that we get the reassurance not just of this debate, which will be short, but of the sort of scrutiny that can occur in committee and that it deserves.

The Bill has raised a number of particular matters that will have to be examined much more closely when we get to the hearings stage. The Bill relies on a school's catchment to define the area within which preference can be given. The concept of a catchment has not been used in Irish education legislation and as such it is a new one. It is not particularly defined in the Bill. It is certainly arguable that a better approach would be to permit preference for a child where he or she does not have a closer school of the same denomination rather than to define "catchment," which is a term we have not used in the past and that is not clear, although I think from Deputy Burton's presentation that she envisages that catchments would not be standard things. Every school would have a different type of catchment which it would presumably define for itself. That obviously provides scope for creative definitions of "catchment" to allow the continued exclusion of local children. A school could define a catchment as a whole county or the whole country. There is an issue that needs to be examined there. The Bill ties catchment of a particular school with catchment of a particular denomination, which overlooks the practice whereby particular Protestant religions frequently give preference to children of other Protestant traditions even though they are not of the same denomination. That is a practice with which we should not lightly interfere.

The concept of requiring a religious school to prove, even within its own catchment, that its preference is, in the words of the Bill, essential to ensure reasonable access to children of that denomination within the catchment certainly pushes the issue quite far. Article 44.2.5° includes the right of religions to organise their own affairs. Even though the schools are in receipt of public funds, there is an issue with a requirement to prove that it is essential. Furthermore, the criteria against which the schools would have to prove that case are not set out. These are issues we need to examine. I am aware that the existing Equal Status Act uses that phraseology in respect of individual refusals, but the admissions Bill we are promoting will provide that a school that is not oversubscribed cannot refuse entry to any pupil. We are going beyond the requirement to prove that it was essential to disallow it in those cases. We need to tease out how the system would work in practice. One of the things about which we must be careful is the risk of creating a situation in which parents have no choice of school. We do not want to do that. We do not want to have parental choice constrained totally by address. Parents are recognised as the primary educators in our system, and that should be facilitated so that they have as wide a choice as possible. One of the things I am very keen to do is to expand that choice and to provide more multidenominational schools so that parents can operate their own choice to have their children taught in schools of their own ethos. That is the best outcome for parents, which is not to say that parents who choose to have a child in a school that is not of their ethos should not be properly accommodated also.

The matter of catchment may also raise issues for boarding schools, which will need consideration. That is especially so in the context of many Protestant boarding schools, which have very broad catchments. That is part of their attraction. The Bill introduces a provision on children who are opting out of religious instruction with regard to some kind of test to prove that preference was essential. I am not sure I see how those two things are connected.

There are constitutional and, given the education legislation, legal obligations to ensure a child's parents who want to opt out have the facility to do so.

This is a constrained debate, but I will welcome this legislation in the short time that is available to me. Our approach of providing a year during which these issues can be teased out will be helpful and allow us to move ahead swiftly, given that we will have worked through complex issues. If these issues had to be reflected upon and developed solely within the Department without having the opportunity to share that work with Deputies or for the committee to hold hearings with people in a public forum, the preparatory work would not be as well done. The way in which Deputy Burton and the Labour Party have proposed the Bill has given us an opportunity. We can push on with the elements relating to, for example, the admissions policy and move to the point at which the Dáil can make decisions on the Bill, which complements some other measures. The old phrase is, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." There have been many reforming people before me in the Department. I want to build on their work and not let valuable measures prepared in the previous Oireachtas be lost.

I hope this offers Deputy Burton some reassurance. My approach to the Bill is constructive and not in the spirit of St. Augustine. I have forgotten what he said, but I know the phrase.

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