Joe O'Toole (Independent)

The first response to the Murphy report should be to ensure the hierarchy and bishops are removed as school patrons. That will not have an impact on Catholic education. Let Catholics elect their own people if they want to establish their own schools. If they want to appoint the local bishop or parish priest, that is their own business but the notion of a structure where systemically the local bishop is the patron of all the schools when he is also responsible for managing the priests of the diocese is not acceptable. We need to remove responsibility for the welfare of our children from the religious hierarchy.

I always notice when the participants come close to an agreement, as is the case in Government Buildings currently, others start outlining the difficulties of implementation. A few months ago, it was said a deal could not be done and agreement on savings could not be reached. This is on the point of being done. Let people sort out the implementation problems at structural level. These deals can be done and they can be made work.