Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. While I broadly welcome the Bill, I would like to make some comments on it. When we are making provisions that relate to religion, I always think the constitutional reality we have means we can do no more than tinker with the issue. That is why the Labour Party is arguing that the Citizens' Assembly should reconvene to discuss the relationship between the church and the State when it comes to the provision of education in Ireland. It makes absolutely no sense whatever to me, on any level, that we should separate children on the basis of gender or religion. I do not think it stands up to any examination as being good for children. Unfortunately, what is best for children is the last thing to be considered when education policy is being drawn up. We look at what is best for patrons and sometimes look at what is best for teacher unions, but we rarely look at what is best for children. We hope the Minister will advocate for the Citizens' Assembly to discuss this matter.

I would like to speak about enrolment fees. We have proposed a Bill that would ban voluntary contributions. We will have an opportunity to discuss this issue at greater length at some time in the future.

I commend what the Minister is doing with regard to the baptism barrier. There are restrictions on how much he can achieve in this space. As others have said, this is the best possible effort that can be made in the current circumstances. The Labour Party will support the Minister in this endeavour.

I have a serious grievance with one area of the Bill. It appears that the fee-paying school sector has an open door at Cabinet level. The proposed new section 62(9) of the Education Act 1998, as set out in section 9 of this Bill, will provide that "Subsection (7)(e)(vi) shall not apply to selection criteria based on a student’s connection to the school by virtue of .... a parent or grandparent of the student concerned having previously attended the school, provided the maximum number of places filled pursuant to that criterion does not exceed 25 per cent of the available places as set out in the school's annual admission notice for the school year concerned". I know the Minister will say that the relevant figure has been 100% up to now. This legislation was delayed under the previous Government because of a row about this provision. The then Minister, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, provided that the figure should be 0%. The Fine Gael response was that it should be 25%.

We need to be perfectly clear about what we are saying here. This Bill proposes that all schools should be allowed to provide a certain number of places to the children of parents or grandparents of past pupils. This automatically means that a child whose parents, or potentially grandparents, did not go to secondary school - by the way, I am one of those people - will be at a disadvantage where a school is oversubscribed. In my opinion, this is elitist tripe. It potentially overrides the rights of vulnerable and marginalised groups.If one is a Traveller child whose parents did not go to secondary school, if one is from a disadvantaged background and one's parents or grandparents did not go to secondary school, if one is not from the local area or if one is not from the country, how can one apply on the same basis? This is a demand of the fee-paying sector, which wants to have a royal blue line of succession running through their schools for fundraising purposes. They want to be in a position to fundraise from the children and grandchildren of past pupils.

As with many things in the case of this Government, when the fee-paying schools sector comes knocking, the door is flung right open. We can talk about the Wesley pitch or the fact that the fee-paying sector is exempt from the provision of special needs classes. While we support elements of the Bill in relation to the baptism barrier, want a further conversation on the Citizens' Assembly and the relationship between church and state, will progress legislation on voluntary contributions and appreciate the mechanisms within the Bill to deal with fees, we oppose this section absolutely. We will oppose it tooth and nail and will call votes on it left, right and centre because it is odious, elitist and wrong. It is only included at the behest of the private fee-paying schools sector, which has been campaigning and lobbying for it for a long time. It is the very reason the last Government did not produce this legislation. There was a row between the parties over this provision.

It is outrageous that a school should be allowed to keep 25% of its student body for children and grandchildren - I repeat "grandchildren" - of past pupils. On all the other measures, the Minister will have our support and we will do our best. I have great sympathy for parents raising their children through the Irish language and who wish to have their children educated through Irish. It is something we have to work on together and we can find solutions. The Minister will have no difficulty finding practical solutions from our end of things. However, this particular provision must be called out for what it is. It is intensive lobbying by a particular elitist sector in Irish society, which always seems to get its way. As the former principal of a DEIS school, I wish we had the same "in" for the most disadvantaged students in the country which the fee-paying sector seems to have. They always seem to get what they want. In terms of this section, the Minister will get no agreement from the Labour Party. We will ensure that there is vote after vote on this and I encourage other Members of the House to support me and my party in that.