Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

No, we are back at school. I welcome the sentiment behind the Bill but I do not believe it will achieve the change we need. Our international obligations have already been cited. As has been said, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has recommended that Ireland amend the existing legislative framework to eliminate discrimination in school admissions, including amendment of the Equal Status Act.

The Ombudsman for Children has recommended change. The Ombudsman's office reviewed material on our UN obligations dating back to a 2006 review of Ireland's implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. That review recommended a change in the admissions framework and so on. The review also examines our monitoring of the international covenant on civil and political rights. Again, the recommendation was to remove discrimination.

The Labour Party is trying to change something without changing it in any real sense. I see the difficulty the Labour Party faces in this regard. There is a strong lobby not to change. However, as was the case during the election, the Labour Party and the previous coalition Government were somewhat out of touch with the views of people. The surveys we have seen support the views of the people to whom we have talked who are demanding change to ensure we do not discriminate against children.

The Minister for Education and Skills has said there will be more schools, and I welcome this. He has set a figure of 400 additional schools within a certain timeframe. However, that does not resolve the problem. While it will give choice, it does not sort out the problem. Let us suppose a small area has only one school. How does someone there who does not want to attend religion class or go to a school with the religious ethos of that school manage? How do we give that child and her parents rights under the Constitution?

In fairness, the former Minister, Mr. Ruairí Quinn, set out on a positive road to try to divest schools of patronage. However, the progress has been extremely slow and I understand only eight schools have divested themselves of religious patronage. We have a historical legacy with 96% of the schools run by religious denominations. However, people have moved on. While I value religion, I also value the right of a child to attend a school without having to participate in religious education.

I do not believe the amendment in the Bill will deal with the complexities of what we are facing. We need to look at it and grasp it in order that we treat all children equally. We give rights to children who want a religious education and we cite the Constitution to back up those rights. However, we cite the Constitution only as an obstacle when it comes to children who do not want that type of education. One cannot pick and choose from the Constitution to suit one's argument.

The Constitution sets out rights entitling people to education and entitling them to practise their religion. However, there is no constitutional right that we would give public funding to a school that will only admit children of certain religions. The Equal Status Act should have addressed the problem at the time, but it did not and that is why we have a problem. It allowed an exception that it should not have allowed at the time. The UN had already indicated we were not meeting our obligations in 2000 and yet we introduced the Equal Status Act. Clearly the Government at the time did not have the courage to do that.

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