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

I accept what Deputy Michael Collins said about resources. Pupil-teacher ratios are important and we need to have targets to reduce them substantially. I accept that there are issues with teachers' pay, resources, capitation grants and so on. I would not minimise the impact segregation can have on children or the pressure being put on children. Are we not dealing in this Chamber with the impact of moral views imposed on women and children, which resulted in mothers being forcibly separated from their children because of the religious views of Archbishop McQuaid and his followers? This is serious. They are dealing with the consequences because a social service was outsourced to people with a particular religious view. I am not saying anything as drastic as that is happening.

The subtle impact on children who feel isolated and have particular views imposed on them can be quite damaging. Sometimes people can be afraid to talk about them.

On a practical level, I have had a long debate with the Minister about the fact that he feels unable to do anything about the Christian Brothers wanting to sell off the playing fields at Clonkeen College. He has said there is nothing he can do and that the Christian Brothers are allowed to do so. Nobody could argue that their actions to protect themselves are not adversely affecting the students. There is something wrong with an education model where the patron of a school can do something that is blatantly and self-evidently against the interests of the schoolchildren in its care, yet it is allowed to persist. It is not an isolated example. I have referred to a similar case in Waterford where the Sisters of Charity are doing the same. There is a problem and it can only be solved by separating church and State in the area of education and also in health, while respecting and protecting the right of people to associate and express particular religious views but not in publicly funded school time.

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