David Norris (Independent)

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, to the House. He is an unusually good choice for this portfolio and I know he will do well in it. There have been some difficulties concerning free third-level fees and I know that a former Labour Minister introduced them. However, I always thought that was an ugly, oxymoronic phrase; either education is free or one pays fees. It is as simple as that. I knew it was inevitable that fees would be paid in universities. My view was that the battle should be between the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Finance, so that the level of means-testing would be set at a point where people who were disadvantaged and had talent to go university should be able to do so. I did not receive much positive comment back from my constituency on that matter but I told the truth. I always try to tell the truth.

I apologise to the Minister for not being here for his speech, but I was attending the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs which was dealing with the important subject of Haiti. In Haiti, some 4,000 schools were destroyed by the earthquake in 2010. In addition, half the population under 18 have not even received a primary education. Compared to that, we are in an extraordinarily good position here. We have a fine tradition of schools, no matter what the material resources were. We can be justly proud of our educational system, although it goes through changes which can be painful. The schools were established by the British imperial authorities in the early 19th century and have gone through a series of - to a certain degree - sectarian managerial and patronage control. I welcome the Minister's honesty and courage in addressing this issue.

I also wish to pay tribute to Archbishop Martin who has shown himself to be practical, realistic and flexible in this area. My own church, the Church of Ireland, has shown similar resistance to what it sees as secularisation. As a believing Christian, I think it is largely the responsibility of parents to provide the ethos, while schools provide background facts about religious history, the literary impact and all these kind of things. It is the responsibility primarily of parents. I was slightly taken aback to hear an attempted defence by Senator Mullen of the sections in the equality legislation that fail to protect certain sections of society. That was also done by a Labour Party Minister, Mervyn Taylor, but it was a practical inevitability at the time. It was regrettable and Joe O'Toole and myself argued against it. I would not wish to do Senator Mullen any injustice and I think I am correcting him when he said that the ethos should be respected and that certain teachers were not suitable because of their strong views on issues such as abortion. One must be very careful there because it is perfectly possible for a teacher to have strong views on any subject, ranging from Palestine, Israel, abortion, homosexuality and pornography, but not necessarily inflict them on students. If they retain these as their private views, there is no justification for dismissing them. I hope the Government will address that and those sections of equality legislation need to be addressed in order to assuage the genuine fears of teachers, including gay teachers. I was astonished to hear my esteemed colleague from Sinn Féin, Senator Reilly, support Senator Mullen. I recommend her to look at the Eileen Flynn case and the elements involved. It was a question of her lifestyle, which was apparently outside the social norms, and also the republican connections that were cited. I wonder if Sinn Féin would be happy with the idea that people could be kicked out of a job because they were "Shinners". I hope that view will be examined again.

This was also regarded as a grab for power but I think the Minister for Education and Skills should have certain powers. He devolves that power under section 6 that was impugned by some of my colleagues. The section seems a valuable and appropriate contribution to the development of education, giving responsibility to principals. It also sets out an educational ethos, not a sectarian ethos, for the educational advancement of young people.

The Minister referred to speech therapy, which I hope will be protected. A number of years ago I raised a matter on the Adjournment concerning the parents of two autistic children who lost the services of a speech therapist because they moved district in Dublin. Autistic children do not just stop improving, they go backwards.

Disadvantage has been taken in under DEIS and I hope -----