Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

We are debating the baptism barrier. There is no doubt that section 7(3)(c) of the Equal Status Act 2000 discriminates against young people. State-funded schools that are in receipt of taxpayers' money should not be controlled by religious institutions. They are paid for by the people and they should be controlled by the people.

The State should control the schools and there should be no discrimination against any child on the basis of religion. That is our position.

The argument is advanced that the people are not ready for that, and that in the most recent census, 70% of people polled said they were Catholic. The exact same argumentation was used to say that the Irish people would never vote in favour of the legalisation of abortion when the Government had a proposal waiting in the wings for 12 weeks. What did we see at the weekend? Not only did a majority support it but the majority supported it decisively. The people are way ahead of the politicians and the establishment parties on these issues. The time has come for the separation of the church from the State. Education is central to that.

To see the kind of mess and tangle caused by the intertwining of the church and State, we do not have to look further than the events discussed in the House this afternoon. At least 126 children were registered as being the biological children of their adoptive parents. This was done via the St. Patrick’s Guild, which became an adoptive society at the urging of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, a famous man back in the day. It was run by the Irish Sisters of Charity. I understand that those false registrations were illegal and that this society was also involved in the secret exporting of more than 500 children to the United States. Instead of taking a bold position on this, the Government has dragged its heels down through the years. It excluded them from the mother and baby homes inquiry despite being told that the society had knowledge of several hundred illegal birth registrations. It repeatedly rejected calls by adoption campaigners for an audit of all adoption files in the State. That is a small example of the type of mess that the State gets itself into when it becomes tangled with the church and church institutions. The time has come for the separation of the church from the State. We must end the baptism barrier.

See this speech in context