Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their questions.

Deputy Bacik raised the issue of the role of the church within education. The situation has evolved significantly. I was one of the original supporters of Educate Together through measures I took with capital expenditure way back in the late 1990s to facilitate the purchase and acquisition of sites much more cost-effectively for Educate Together schools. That was followed through and we have a far more pluralistic and democratic system now. Plebiscites often happen and people vote for the type of school they want. Evolution is changing the very landscape of education as we speak. That will continue and I think we need to see more divestment and greater use of existing resources in terms of existing school buildings, for example. There is a whole issue there.

Some religious orders have also donated to the State without any compulsion. In Carlow, for example, the third level college has been offered to the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science for use by Carlow Institute of Technology. Provided it is retained for teaching and education purposes, there are no strings attached. It is a fantastic site in the middle of Carlow. The site of the Presentation Sisters in Cork has been transformed and is home to the Cork Migrant Centre, community groups and a range of activities. Social housing was facilitated on that site a long time ago. Some religious orders donate their land for the use of social housing, for example. That needs to be acknowledged. There are others that do not, it has to be said. I was a bit struck when Dublin City Council recently recommended to councillors not to facilitate the zoning of church lands given the housing crisis we are in. I was not quite sure of the overall reasoning behind that. There needs to be balance. We need more amenity land in Dublin, certainly, but where land is next to services and we can get compact growth housing growth, I would have thought that we should use some lands for housing given the crisis we are in. Again, I will read up on that a bit further and in more detail.

In response to Deputy Barry, I support unequivocally the trans community and I am not sure we can lay all the blame on religion entirely. There are cultural issues afoot. I certainly think within education we need to develop far more sophisticated anti-bullying policies. We need to create a climate of tolerance. We do not need the toxic debates that have happened in the UK and elsewhere on this issue. We need to have a society-wide response, beginning in our schools. There are issues we need to analyse a bit more deeply. It is not all about who owns the school. It is deeper than that, unfortunately, in terms of the groupthink that goes on and the degree to which people are bullied and really have journeys and experiences that are very sad in many respects and that should not happen. The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment is developing curricula in relationships and sexuality education, RSE, at primary and post-primary level. That is extremely important. I have spoken to the Minister for Education. We need to really get those programmes modernised and updated to deal with LGBT+ issues. RSE needs to be modernised and updated but it is also important that the teachers who deliver the curricula are resourced adequately in terms of continuing professional development and that there is a lead person within the school to lead the programme within schools.

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