Pádraig Rice (Cork South-Central, Social Democrats)

I thank Deputy Cummins for her work on the motion and also over many years on this issue and wider education issues. The pace of change is far too slow. We heard during the week in the audiovisual room from a parent who said, “I wonder if I am doing this for my children or my grandchildren.” That is how frustrated parents are about the pace of change. Across County Cork, there are 350 Catholic schools but only 13 multidenominational schools. There is no real choice or option for parents when there is that level of difference and that lack of choice.

I fully support the removal of faith formation from the school day. I was talking to a teacher who said that communion and confirmation erode teaching time and take up a huge amount of the school day. I think back to my own time in school and the hours spent on things like confession and going to mass. As somebody who is not religious, I sat there thinking this was such a waste of precious school time that could have been used for English, maths or learning other things. It should be done outside of the school day if that is the choice of parents and young people.

With regard to the allocation of time, I was talking to a primary school teacher at the weekend who said that at present, the school is spending two and a half hours a week on religious education, an hour on PE and only half an hour on SPHE. A disproportionate amount of time is being allocated. I know that this is subject to change and that there is a new framework. However, even under that new framework, for first and second class, the patrons’ programme is going to get eight hours a week, which in most schools is religious education, whereas science only gets four, so science education is only getting half the time that we are allocating to the religious programme. There are huge issues with regard to the amount of time that is being allocated. We also know that this religious ethos filters through the whole day and it is not just the teaching time. Part of that goes back to the education of teachers. Most teacher education has a very strong religious ethos and there is an issue to look at there as well.

One area I care about is that of relationships and sex education. I had members of BeLonG To in Leinster House yesterday and they were talking about some of the research they have done. It was very worrying. They conducted a survey of primary school teachers in 2024 and found that two in five felt the school's ethos had impacted on LGBT inclusivity, and one and four said they never teach SPHE or RSE in an LGBT-inclusive way. That is one in four teachers not including a portion of students in their education, and that stems back to the religious ethos and the lack of knowledge among teachers. We need to see real change in that regard. It will be good to see the convention happen and, hopefully, we will get some change.

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