Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate what has been said. However, most European countries have a section 37(1) or their own version of section 37(1). The difficulty in Ireland is that the vast majority of schools, particularly national schools, are under religious patronage whereas in other European countries that is not the case. In every other European country that I am aware of, a version of section 37(1) is on their statute books. In those countries the State's education system runs in a particular way but parallel to that are religious ethos schools and teachers make their own determinations. The difficulty in this country is that we do not, effectively, have a State-run education system. We have a State-funded education system which is then outsourced to patron bodies and that is how we run the system here. We have a section 37(1) on our Statute Book which has a huge impact on virtually every primary schoolteacher unless he or she is fortunate enough or has the facility to teach in a school that does not impinge on his or her ethos. The difficulty is the population of schools, or the number of schools, which are run under a religious ethos and trying to balance the constitutional right of parents to have education delivered through a particular religious ethos with the right of the worker. In other countries the balance is easier struck but here it is not as easy to do, unfortunately. That is the balance that we are trying to strike.