Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Deputies who contributed. It was a very good debate on a very serious issue. I have listened with great care to all the views expressed and know many speakers have given a lot of thought to these issues because they have been around for a long time.

Some colleagues commented that Labour's Equal Status (Admissions to Schools) Bill is not radical enough. It is, in truth, a modest proposal. It is clear it is drafted within the constraints of the Constitution, to address the point made by both Ministers who spoke in the debate. It is designed to address one net issue, namely, to strike a balance between the right of a school to preserve its denominational ethos - it is clear not everybody in the House believes this is right but that is the constitutional position - and the right of a child to attend a State-funded school in his or her own area and, if that be the wish of that child's parents, to avoid religious instruction being given to that child. I agree that is not an earth-shattering set of proposals but it is very important if it affects any one child. If a child in a community cannot get into a local school and children from more distant areas are leapfrogging that child simply because they are of the same religious denomination as the patron of the school that is next door, that is not right. While there are other issues, we can do something about this net issue within the constraints of the Constitution, and we can do it right now.

Our simple belief is that schools that are funded by the State must be prepared to accept pupils from other denominations and from none into their own school community. Many schools do that anyway, as a matter of course. Most Deputies agree it is positive for children to study and play with children from other religions and from other ethnic or national backgrounds.

It is good for children and it is a fundamental building block of a better society. If we know anything from the divisions on our island and, elsewhere, when new migrant communities have come to other European countries, the segregation of communities on the basis of ethnicity, nationality or religion was calamitous in most cases. Too often we have seen that segregation result in alienation of people from each other and from society. A lack of social contact with people of different backgrounds is fundamentally bad for society. As Deputy Burton has set out, what was originally intended to be a mixed religious national school system in this country in the 19th century, which was a progressive view then, has been made into a segregated denominational system of education. That is the one we grew up in and it is still 96% denominational. The result has been little or no choice for most parents. Perhaps there was not an enormous clamour for choice in the 1930s, 1940s or 1950s, but that clamour is there now and we need to address it. We are not suggesting that the problem can be cured entirely by enacting this legislation. A solution will require a number of other matters including, as Deputy Burton has very clearly said, the continuation of the vast schools building programme that my colleague, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, and before her Ruairí Quinn, set about. We have to build more schools and more schools of difference so that we provide choice and match the views of parents. Three quarters of parents want choices that are not available in the current system. The Bill addresses the issue of local children being effectively locked out of their local schools on religious grounds even where there is a space for them. They are being leapfrogged by children coming from well outside their local area, simply because they are of a different faith. That cannot be right.

The issue of catchment, which several Deputies have talked about, is important. In our proposals, we seek to leave that to each school to determine, and I recognise the points made by Deputy Byrne in that regard. There are huge issues in my constituency of Wexford that need to be addressed by defining catchment, because certain schools are drawing pupils from all over the place and other schools are under-subscribed. We need to do something about that. Either we have a CAO system at local level, which was piloted in Limerick, or a defined catchment, but we need to get on with it. That is a separate issue.

The Government amendment seeks to stop the Bill from getting a second reading for a year, which there is no coherent or cogent reason for. Even if somebody said three months, one could make an argument for it, but delaying it for a year can only be interpreted as an attempt to stop the proposal from being enacted. Surely new politics is about allowing debate and allowing all the issues listed by the Government to be addressed by the committee. I have served on committees here for 30 years. There would be no difficulty with any of the points made by Deputy Byrne. The committees can have hearings, bring in deputations and ask for submissions. It may take many months, but the idea of voting down the principle of the Bill on Second Stage on Thursday is wrong. Let the principle be passed so that there is a grounding base document for people to address; otherwise, we are asking the committee to deal with the abstract. I ask that, in the spirit of new politics and with a genuine sense of engagement by all the people here, because there are many important ideas in this debate, we allow this Bill to pass Second Stage. I am very impressed-----

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