Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I have great respect for religious diversity and people's religious beliefs, to which they are entitled. What is totally unacceptable, however, is the religious segregation of young children, particularly in a country where one religious denomination dominates. What was supposed to be a curriculum for multi-denominational schools, which was all inclusive, was then given over to a Catholic college that drew up a curriculum which effectively required segregation. The reason it is "evolving", to use the Minister's nice word, is because nine of the 11 schools established have opted out and have refused to implement the segregation that the "goodness me, goodness you" curriculum tried to force on them.

We need to acknowledge what has happened here and scrap that curriculum. We should get the NCCA to draw up what should have been drawn up 11 years ago, which is a genuinely all-inclusive, non-sectarian, non-discriminatory, non-segregative curriculum that does not involve segregating children on the basis of some requirement to have faith formation within the school. That should be kept outside the school gates.

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