Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

1. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his recent engagements with church leaders. [11009/23]

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

2. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his recent engagement with church leaders. [12442/23]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

3. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on recent engagements with church leaders. [12857/23]

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

4. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on recent engagements with church leaders. [12860/23]

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

5. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on recent engagements with church leaders. [12861/23]

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

6. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his recent engagements with church leaders. [12654/23]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 6, inclusive, together.

The most recent formal meeting between the Office of the Taoiseach and church leaders took place on 15 April 2021 when the then Taoiseach, now Tánaiste, met with the leaders of the all-island Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, Church of Ireland, Presbyterian Church, Methodist Church and Irish Council of Churches. I understand that discussions covered the ongoing contribution to peacebuilding and the work the churches undertake on an ongoing basis at community level in Northern Ireland. I recognise the importance of that engagement and of respect for all communities and traditions on these islands.

Like public representatives generally, and Ministers, I meet church leaders informally from time to time in the course of attending official or public events.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I want to raise a recent publication of which the Taoiseach may be aware, entitled A Dublin Magdalene Laundry - Donnybrook and Church-State Power in Irelandedited by Mark Coen, Katherine O'Donnell and Maeve O'Rourke. This new publication tells the story of Donnybrook Magdalen laundry, which was established in 1837 by the Religious Sisters of Charity. It reveals a significant amount of new information that is of significant political interest and two key questions arise from it. First, does the Taoiseach acknowledge that the book calls into question several key findings of the interdepartmental committee on the Magdalen laundries, the so-called McAleese committee that produced a report in 2013? The McAleese committee suggested, for example, that the financial records of the Donnybrook laundry did not survive but this book shows that some of them did and remained on site right up to the 1990s. The report says the Magdalen laundries operated on a break-even basis but the book shows that Donnybrook was generating a good financial surplus annually, up to half of which was transferred to the Religious Sisters of Charity. That surplus was generated by slavery - the unpaid work of girls and women. I will say it again - it was generated by the slavery of those women and girls incarcerated in laundries. Records discovered by Mark Coen in the Dublin Diocesan Archives prove that Donnybrook had a laundry contract with the military, although the McAleese report says that the committee was unable to verify this claim. The Department of Defence revoked the contract as the Religious Sisters of Charity were in violation of the fair wages clause that is in all State contracts but that fact is omitted from the McAleese report.

Will the Taoiseach acknowledge some key inaccuracies in the McAleese report that have been shown up by this book? Second, will the Government now introduce legislation to criminalise the destruction, alteration or failure to preserve institutional records by those who possess them, including those who were involved in these Magdalen laundries, which were terrible institutions?

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

What engagement has been had with church leaders on their respective contributions to the mother and baby homes redress scheme? What progress has been made on this matter?

Laura Murphy, the daughter of a mother and baby home survivor, penned an open letter to the Taoiseach, which was published online yesterday. In her letter she called on him to ensure that the Catholic Church contributes to redress and is brought into a meaningful process of truth, reconciliation and reparation. She called for all mother and baby home survivors to receive the redress that is rightfully theirs, including redress for all survivors and a State apology to those who were boarded out as children. The then Taoiseach told the Dáil in 2001 that boarded-out children were not cared for or looked after and often did not get their education. He also said that this was an issue that the Government could not ignore. Laura has now called on this Government to move from a space of retraumatisation to reparation, from abdication to accountability and from injustice to justice. Religious orders and the State had a direct hand in, and oversight of, the exploitation of such children, who were, in effect, abandoned to devastating exploitation and neglect within the families to which they were boarded out. Laura has made a really powerful argument for trauma-informed leadership and decision-making.

I really hope the Taoiseach will give Laura's open letter the consideration and the response it deserves.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The programme for Government commits to ensuring we develop an education system that serves everybody, whatever religion they are or if they have no religion whatsoever, and that commits to advancing the divestment programme. As we know, currently 90% of schools are in the hands of the Catholic Church. The schools run with their ethos, which is hardly appropriate for a country that is increasingly more religiously diverse and where indeed there are people who have no religion. Nor, for that matter, is it a great advertisement to people up North, if we are serious about having a united Ireland that breaks from the religious sectarianism of the past.

The latest evidence that the divestment programme is not going very well was seen in Raheny, where there were discussions for the reconfiguration of three Catholic schools, and it has run into serious trouble. It is not the first example of this, which points to the fact that the whole process of consultation is not working. While I can only read the reports, it is not the first time I have heard of this sort of thing. We do not have anybody who is really selling the benefits of divestment. There is also a concern among school communities and staff that in reconfiguration, school communities will lose out in terms of facilities and what is available for children etc.

As well as this, because the whole process is being designed between the Church and the State, there are certain people who do not really want to change the status quo and who are scaremongering about what the consequences of divestment might be, such as new patronage, reconfiguration etc. Raheny and other examples suggest that we have to look at the whole process of consultation again. We need to sell the benefits of divestment and of having a more secular education system. We need to ensure it is seen as a win for school communities in terms of the facilities that will be available and not as a possible threat to those school communities in terms of facilities, school buildings, sports facilities, or whatever it might be.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Since we are on the topic of divestment of schools, we are having quite a difficult experience in Ballyfermot with the divestment and amalgamation of schools. There needs to be more forward planning about how we carry it through. When you talk to parents, the vast majority of them say they are for non-ethos based education. Schools often carry out surveys to see how the parents will respond. The surveys are online and, like most surveys, they get a very low respondent rate. The respondents they do get tend to state, "I want my kids to grow up in a Catholic school". This is because the respondents tend to be those who are positive about the status quo. We therefore need to find a different tool to ascertain how the population in general feels about non-ethos based education. My own view for a long time and that of People Before Profit-Solidarity is in our Bill which is sitting in the waiting room for a long time for the Government to bring in a non-ethos based sex education and consent programme and that would allow for divestment to happen much more freely. It would mean that if parents want their children to have religious education, then they can send them to a religious class, but otherwise, the school would be non-religious. That is the easiest way to proceed. If you are Muslim and you want your kids to have a Muslim education, they can go to a Muslim class, and likewise if you are a Catholic. We need to think about this much more clearly and be much more proactive as a State in saying it will happen in the lifetime of this Government. I hope this will be the case, however short or long that lifetime will be.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I will take the questions in order. I have received a copy of the book Deputy Bacik referred to, but I have not yet had time to read it, so I cannot comment on the assertions made by the authors or adjudicate on them. In relation to records relating to Magdalen laundries, major work is currently under way to establish a central repository of records within the national centre for research and remembrance. The repository will encompass records related to industrial schools, reformatories, Magdalen laundries, mother and baby homes and related institutions.

In April 2022, a steering group comprising the main State stakeholders involved in the development of the national centre was established. The group is responsible for developing the overall vision of the centre and for providing strategic oversight for the design, development, co-ordination and implementation of composite elements. Work on the creation of the central repository of records to sit within the national centre is being led by the National Archives under the auspices of the steering group. It is envisaged that the repository will include the historical records of the institutions, including industrial schools, Magdalen laundries, mother and baby and county home institutions and orphanages. Work on the creation of the central repository is assisted by a dedicated legal and legislative subgroup which is considering whether any additional legislative measures are needed for the creation and management of the archive. This includes the protection of records.

The Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 already provides an important foundation for the creation of the central repository. This is because it mandates the safeguarding of relevant records, including where such records are privately held. However, privately held records relating to Magdalen laundries would fall outside the scope of the safeguarding provisions. This is something that was being explored further as a matter of priority.

Deputy McDonald asked about contributions by religious orders to the various compensation schemes that the Government has set up. We believe all relevant parties have a shared moral and ethical obligation to assist with appropriate actions in response to the commission's reports. The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, has commenced an engagement with all religious congregations and church leaders with a view to discussing how they might contribute to the payment scheme. However, it should be noted there is no clear mechanism by which we could require them or force them to do so.

In relation to children who were boarded out, it is the view of the Government that a statutory inquiry into the practice of boarding out is not likely to provide additional information to what was provided in the commission's final report. It was decided that a general payment based on time spent in institutions was the best option to provide for a non-adversarial approach to the mother and baby institutions payment scheme. This approach unfortunately does not cater for the circumstances of all people who were boarded out which, given the very individual experiences would have to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. However, if a person spent time in an institution prior to being boarded out as a child, they would qualify for the payment scheme based on their time spent in the institution. The Government's action plan for survivors and former residents of mother and baby and county home institutions includes other measures that will provide assistance to those who were boarded out as children such as, for example, birth information and tracing, and commitments to restorative resolution.

Some Deputies raised the issue of reconfiguration, and while I know people have different views on that, the most important view is that we try to respect the wishes of parents and indeed the parents of future pupils of particular schools. We must also take into account the views of staff. I am somebody who supports greater choice around education and education ethos. I appreciate this is easier to do in urban areas than rural areas. However, in my constituency, for example, there are Educate Together, national schools and secondary schools, Catholic Archdiocese schools, a Church of Ireland school, Gaelscoileanna and a number of community and national schools.

After a survey of parents in Tyrrelstown a decision was made to establish a new Le Chéile secondary school. Similarly, in the Castleknock area, a new secondary school will soon be formally opened under the patronage of the Edmund Rice Schools Trust. It is important to take into account what parents actually want and what their wishes are. I do not agree with forced secularisation of our education system.

If a school is working well and parents are happy with how it is working, that view should be respected.

On more information being provided, the Department of Education sets out that there are 166 multidenominational or interdenominational primary schools, an increase of seven on last year, and this is part of a longer-term trend, with the number of multidenominational primary schools rising from 85 to 165. That is an increase of nearly 50% in the past ten years. At post-primary level, the number of multidenominational schools has increased by 16 from 343 in 2011 to 359 now. During the period from 2011, when the current arrangement on the establishment of new schools was introduced, 53 new primary schools and 50 new post-primary schools have been established. Of these, 52 of the 53 are multidenominational and one is interdenominational. When it comes to post-primary schools, there are 50 new ones, of which 44 are multidenominational, five Catholic and one Church of Ireland.