Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This Bill is meant to be aimed at reforming significant inequality in school admission practices. In reality, it is more like a patient with cancer going to the doctor to seek treatment but only getting treatment for a head cold she happens to have as well. The core glaring practice of discrimination in this country in education is on the grounds of religion and religious patronage. The idea that the Minister would draft a Bill, leave out that issue or side-step it and that this would be somehow acceptable is absurd. A Green Party Deputy spoke earlier and said that her party would support the Bill. They should not support a Bill that encourages and facilitates discrimination against children on the basis of their parents' religion.

Let us put the religious issue aside for a moment to deal with some other aspects. There are some welcome reforms. The prohibition on schools seeking a fee or contribution for an application for a child to attend a school is welcome, as is the prohibition on the practice of a determination on the basis of parental interviews. We have all heard about these in the past. Another welcome measure is the prohibition on schools screening out those they deem to be difficult pupils on the basis of tests. There is a change to references to special educational needs in admission policies, although far more needs to be said about this on the next Stage, and I remain unconvinced that this will no longer happen. It is welcome that schools will have to publish admission policies, although most of them do so now in any case.

I take issue with the Minister retaining the past pupil rule. In effect this is a continuation of the old boys and old girls network. People who end up in university together studying law, medicine and other prestige courses tend to have gone to the same schools. It is simply a continuation of that culture. This rule was used recently to discriminate against a Traveller getting in to a school. The school circumvented the equality legislation by arguing that the child's father had not attended the school. The Minister must explain why he has not removed this rule. It will be used as a further ground to keep people out. These people are already marginalised and we have had enough marginalisation of the Traveller community in this country. The rule affects immigrants and people who have come to this country in a similar way. One would have to agree that there are some things in this country that would make Mr. Trump seriously envious. When it comes to health and education and the control of the Catholic Church, we can see where that view comes from.

Deputy Troy asked whether this was really an issue. In Dublin West, one in four people are not of Irish origin. It is among the fastest-growing areas of Ireland. Most people coming to the area do not have a family history of anyone attending a local school. It is easy to see how this can be used, potentially. We also have an issue with homeless families. A total of 40% of homeless people in Dublin are from my constituency. We can see the complications in this regard if the rule is to be used against them as well. We are told the Bill will eliminate socioeconomic criteria when it comes to getting access to schools. However, while we still have poverty and social division, that simply will not happen.

We need to hear more about the changes in the area of special needs. There is also a concern among Irish-speaking families that they will not be able to secure priority access to Gaelscoileanna. That needs to be clarified.

The substantive problem with the Bill is that it continues to allow religion to be used as a criterion for keeping a child out of a school. This is despite the fact that education is a right in the Constitution. I would like to hear from the Minister which parts of the Constitution is he referring to when he says constitutional rights have to be considered. I would like to put the same question to Deputy Burton. The Constitution is being used when it comes to dealing with the housing crisis as well. There is no right in the Constitution to discriminate or to have a denominational education.

The Minister had tried to point us in the direction of the Labour Party Bill as a means of dealing with this issue. That will not work, I am afraid, because that Bill does not deal conclusively with discrimination. It simply gives the catchment area of a school a greater priority than the religion of the parents. Of course, it does not challenge the status quo. The only conclusion is that the State and political parties in the Dáil are petrified of taking on the Catholic Church and they will not do it.

People need to realise where they should go if they want this type of change. Left-wing parties have always advocated and championed such change and they are the only parties people can rely on to make the radical change that is necessary and to do so quickly. It will not be done by the big parties in the House. Those parties are willing to cower before the Catholic Church to the point of illegally allowing open religious discrimination in schools and in school admissions. As a socialist, I stand for the full separation of church and state. I fully support religious freedom as well. That is a very important principle to defend. We oppose the State interfering in the personal beliefs of people, but we also oppose religious views being imposed on people against their wishes. It is incorrect to suggest that allowing religious discrimination in school admissions has to be permitted to defend religion. The legal advice we have seen shows there is no problem removing religious discrimination in schools.

People are being discriminated against on religious grounds as we speak. We have all heard of Roopesh Panicker, a Hindu man who has gone public about the fact that his child was unable to get in to countless schools. Someone from the Archbishop's office told him that if his child were baptised – if the family changed their religion, effectively - she would get into the local school without a problem. Religious discrimination is happening all the time.

The shortcomings of the Bill are clear. Deputy Troy asked whether this religion question was an issue and suggested that only a few schools were divested-----

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