Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I would like to pick up where Senator Norris left off. I welcome debate on this motion as it is an issue about which I feel strongly and one I have raised on the Order Paper and previously on the Order of Business. The Minister is well aware of the problem of the lack of planning that led to the crisis over school places in Balbriggan. However, we need to focus on the deeper, structural issue that needs to be addressed, which requires the sort of national convention for which the Labour Party is calling.

I call on the Minister to focus on the issue of church control of schools which are State funded and whose teachers' salaries are paid by the State. For a long time the State abdicated responsibility for the education of children and the churches took it on. However, in modern Ireland it is no longer appropriate that children gain access to schools on the basis of religion. It is unjustifiable that a child may be denied a place in school because he or she is of the wrong religion.

Some Senators have mentioned the issue of choice. In rural Ireland, where I grew up, there generally is no choice and children must attend the local school, which is generally Catholic. If parents are not of the Catholic faith or are of no faith, they do not have a choice in a real sense.

Senator Norris spoke about Educate Together, which is a multi-denominational school organisation. This is the model we should look to in a modern pluralist Ireland. If a more integrated schooling system had been developed in Northern Ireland, it might have resolved some of the sectarian issues there.

Other speakers mentioned the Equal Status Act. This Act gives schools exclusion rights and allows them to discriminate on the basis of religion. There is a concern that this exemption in the legislation may lead to indirect racial discrimination, a matter which has been raised by the Equality Authority and which the Government must examine in the context of EU law and the EU race directive. The opening of schools which appear to be almost exclusively made up of children of a non-Irish ethnic background, or of only Irish ethnic background, is a significant concern. It is in our interest and that of our children that our schooling system be fully integrated and that all children be given equal access to school places, irrespective of their race or religion.

Religious instruction should be a private matter for parents outside of school while schools should teach religious education, which is a different matter, to all children by teaching them about religions. We should see an end to discrimination and to the system of patronage on the basis of religion.