Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this issue. It gives me a chance to update the position. The Senators is correct, in that the admissions Bill I introduced to the House dealt with a number of issues around which there was a fair degree of consensus.

There remains a desire to put positive changes in place quickly. The Bill deals with banning discrimination and waiting lists, requiring written admissions policies and empowering the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, and Tusla to require a school to take a child with special needs. There are positive things in the Bill.

There was a broad belief that we need to address the issue of admissions policies in respect of the use of religion in schools. While proceeding with the Bill I established a consultation process and outline for four different options. The consultation process took place earlier this year, at the end of March. There were many submissions and there was no consensus. No one approach of those outlined had a consensus approach.

As I indicated on Committee Stage in the Dáil, the way to deal with this was to remove religion as a general criterion in admissions policies and, as the Senator said, provide three exceptions. The exceptions were outlined at the time and largely concerned allowing schools to protect their ethos if it was threatened and allowing children of minority religions to get into a school of their choice. This is based on the idea that it is right and welcome that people should have the desire to bring up children in their faith if they want to.

In our Constitution we endow schools with the right to have religions to run schools and, therefore, we should try to facilitate that to the best extent possible.It is wrong that children cannot get access to a local school, and preference is given on religious grounds to children living a considerable distance away. It is also wrong that people should feel obliged to have their children baptised to gain admission to a school.

The position in terms of the approach I outlined is that I have been dealing with the Attorney General to develop those proposals and to ensure that I am in a position to come to the House with legally and constitutionally robust proposals. As the Senator knows, there can be a lot of legal opinions, but ultimately the Government must be guided by the Attorney General who is the legal adviser to the Government. That work is ongoing, but at this stage I believe that it may be possible to introduce this by way of an amendment to the existing Education (Admission to Schools) Bill rather than requiring a separate Bill. Obviously, I do not want to make a commitment that is irrevocable because clearly that depends on the proposal we have made being found to be robust. I am working with the Attorney General and will revert to the Houses as soon as I am in a position to do so.

It is timely that we deal with this issue. If we take the route that I have set out, effectively religion would not be used in 95% of the schools that are in place. As the Senator knows, 80% of schools do not now use religion, and that will become law under the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill. It will no longer be legal, where a school is not oversubscribed, to exclude a child on the basis of religion. That will be outlawed. What we are now doing for the remaining 20% is providing that religion would not be used as a bar but for two exceptions, namely, to protect minority churches and to ensure that the ethos of the school would not be threatened. That is already provided for under equal status legislation.

I hope that I will be in a position to come back to the House in due course with a set of proposals.