Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support the Bill brought forward by Solidarity-PBP. It is a very important Bill, and I have spoken on this issue a number of times in the Dáil in the past few years.

In terms of the consultation process, the Minister has had 11 consultations and there are to be another four, but that is not dealing with the issue we are facing as a society. A recent report in The Irish Timessuggested that in that consultation process some political parties and larger patron bodies have favoured a catchment area rule. A catchment area rule is not a resolution to the baptism barrier issue. It would still allow State funded schools to give preference to children of a particular religion over others. It is clearly a form of discrimination that has no place in a modern democracy. It prioritises the protection of a patron's ethos over a child's right to equal access to education. It potentially would be an administrative nightmare for the Department and has the real possibility of taking years to finalise.

I want to make a point on which other Deputies have spoken. Ireland is fairly unique in Europe from the point of view that 96% of our schools are faith schools, with almost 90% under the patronage of the Catholic Church. Parents are helpless in the face of an education system that makes it legally permissible to discriminate in order for a school to protect its own ethos. This is a situation that shames us as a nation. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the European Commissioner for Human Rights, Ireland's rapporteur on child protection, the Ombudsman for Children and the Irish Human Rights Commission have called for reform of this system. They have called on the Government to prohibit the use of religious-based admission policies in State funded schools in order to protect the right to religious freedom and equality, so it is not a question of fairness. It is a question of human rights. This is the issue we, as legislators, must take on board in this Dáil.

Recently published census figures show that those selecting "No Religion" is by far the largest growing segment of Irish society. The figure has risen from 269,820 in 2011 to 468,000 in 2016. In large parts of the country, people have no option but to send their children to local State funded schools as there is no real alternative for them, and those State schools can legally turn away those children. It is five years since the Government first considered tackling this issue and the fact that we are where we are now is shameful.

There was a very good legal opinion piece done recently by Michael Lynn, senior counsel, who I have met previously. The Minister would do well to read it.

I do not know whether the Minister has read it. Paragraph 4.2 of the opinion piece states:

While legislation providing State aid for schools shall not discriminate between schools under the management of different religious denominations, there is no constitutional impediment to the State requiring that all publicly funded schools cease discriminating on the grounds of religion in their admissions policies. Thus, there are no 'thorny constitutional issues' at play in this context.

The Bill requires that the faith of parents and their children be dealt with after school hours. The Minister and, I am sure, the Solidarity-PBP Deputies, are correct that there should be no religious ethos in schools once they are funded publicly by the taxpayer. Everybody should have an equal education. There should not be privilege on the basis of religion or the ethos of a school, whether it be a rugby ethos or any other. Every child should have the same education through State-funded schools and if one wants to practice anything afterwards outside school hours, it may be organised within the schools and dealt with in that way.

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