Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of Fianna Fáil, I want to say that we can see a strong case to be made for having religion at the end of the school day. There is a strong case for that. It happens already, as alluded to by Deputy Shortall, in multidenominational schools where religious instruction is provided, in some cases to the majority of pupils, depending on the parents' wishes, and it seems to happen pretty seamlessly. There are practical issues. It would not be fair on schools to implement it straight away. There is an opportunity for the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Skills to examine this issue, in particular, in the autumn and to invite in the stakeholders. It is important in our education system that we do not simply make laws and hand them down but that we bring the stakeholders along. That is the way the education system has worked in Ireland and the reason it has become the one it is today. I would be reluctant to support the amendments on that basis without in any way challenging the ethos of schools.

If we were to deal with the fact that say, for example, in rural Ireland there is one school in a parish or a village where parents do not subscribe to its ethos, it will not be possible for the State to provide a multiplicity of school ethoses in those areas and it might be better if faith formation were done at the end of the school day. It will also not be realistic to have wholescale divestment of schools from the various patrons. This might be a way of dealing with the issue and I do not believe anyone has anything to fear from it. There are practical implications to it, however, and there may well be resourcing implications also.

The Minister issued a circular to the education and training boards, ETB, sector recently demanding that they provide alternatives to religious education without providing the resources for that. While it may have got the Minister a fantastic headline to the effect that he is moving with the times and so on, on a practical basis it will not work in schools because they do not have the resources. In terms of any of these issues, I will not subscribe to the approach of just legislating for this today. The same applies to the Minister's circular on ETBs on which there was no consultation or announcement. The Oireachtas committee can examine this in some detail with the stakeholders later in the year or early next year to see first if it is an issue. It may well be the case that we could give schools the option but there is certainly an argument for it and it already works well.

In regard to patronage, and I said this last night, the Minister is embarking on a complicated process in terms of finding out who the patrons might be for the 42 schools he announced on 13 April. I am shocked to hear stories about the type of canvassing and negative campaigning that has been undertaken in some areas when this patronage issue has arisen. These are State schools we are providing. We have a multiplicity of religious denomination schools in the country and it seems that the education and training board sector is the most appropriate vehicle to take these schools. We can ensure there are a sufficient number of Gaelscoileanna as well through that model.

The process the Minister is undertaking this summer in terms deciphering the patronage is putting a huge administrative burden on his Department and on the patron bodies which, in some cases, do not have the resources. It might be better simply to state that these are State schools and should remain in State patronage. That would be efficient and would pursue the goals we share of further diversity in the education sector. It is clear from the Minister's statements that it is open to religious patrons to canvass for religious ethos schools, even where there is sufficient supply, and it would be open to patron bodies for Gaelscoileanna to canvass for Gaelscoileanna where there is already a Gaelscoil. That is something we believe is unnecessary and I strongly urge the Minister to reconsider the patronage campaign that will now have to be embarked on by these groups and organisations, including the State sector, that is, the Minister's ETBs, which will have to spend a good deal of money on this to introduce themselves to people. I strongly urge the Minister to reconsider that. It would take a huge administrative burden off his Department, bring clarity to the process and allow the ETBs to focus on the location of the sites for these schools, particularly the 21 starting in September 2019. It would also allow them to recruit principals for these schools. That would give some leadership, direction and identification to potential parents who would be seeking to send their children to those schools.

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