Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Ireland has an increasingly secular population which has led to a demand for more diversity in schools. It is also a fact that 96% of our primary schools are under denominational patronage, which creates significant issues for children of minority faiths and none in the Irish education system. A 2015 article in The Irish Timesset out that four out of five immigrant children were concentrated in 23% of our primary schools. ESRI research from 2012 found that 44% of primary schools did not have any ethnic minority pupils whereas in 9% of primary schools more than 20% of all students were from an ethnic minority background. Clearly, we have a problem.

It is unfair that those children who do not go to a faith school or whose parents do not want them to attend such schools receive lower priority when seeking to enrol in denominational schools. There is no doubt that multidenominational schools are more likely to be oversubscribed because they are so few in number. Primary school admissions policies must reflect the significant cultural, social and demographic changes the country has undergone and provide for increased diversity. There is an increasing mismatch between the current patronage arrangements and the wishes of parents.

I have to say schools have a right to defend their ethos, and this is explicitly protected by Article 44.5° of the Constitution. We have to allow the ability of minority faith schools to defend their ethos. If a school can choose its own language, and rightly so, in terms of Gaelscoileanna, then surely a school should have a right to choose its own ethos. The Fianna Fáil solution, and the only workable approach, is to use catchment areas as the basis for selection processes and, for oversubscribed schools, criteria based on locality and catchment area should be used. Catchment areas could be sized according to the popularity of the school ethos. For example, Presbyterian or Jewish schools would have a very wide catchment area for admissions as there are so few of them in the country. This would protect them, and rightly so, as minority denominational schools. With this approach we could remove the worst problems of the baptism barrier and provide the right to religious freedom and equality of education for all.

We must support choice and we must support diversity. At this point in time, as the Minister is aware, two Bills with regard to equal access to admissions are before the committee. We spent some time today at a committee meeting looking at these. The committee hopes to be in a position within the coming weeks to have a finalised report to recommend to the Minister.

What is the bottom line? It is that nobody should have to baptise his or her child to get into a school and that all children, regardless of religious denomination and outlook, should have access to a school in their local community. This should be extended to all children outside of their religious beliefs or none. Children with disabilities should also have the right to access a school in their own area. The treatment of non-Catholic parents and children in our education system is an urgent rights issue and needs to be dealt with.

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