Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I accept that. The amendment relates to the provision within the Bill that allows for children, grandchildren or family members of past pupils to be given a level of priority when seeking access to an oversubscribed school. There are two amendments on this in two different sections that relate to it but it is very much the same point.

This particular section makes the point about family members. It is connected with another section in the Bill. It is the same point I am trying to make. It is connected to the children and grandchildren issue which I will raise later. There is a provision in the Bill that 25% of places in schools can be reserved for children or grandchildren of past pupils. The Minister knows my point of view on this because I have raised it before. I do not feel it is right that children who are trying to access a school on the same basis as everyone else should be disadvantaged because they are not a family member of a past pupil. It is not an unreasonable proposition. It is completely unreasonable that it is in the Bill. It places certain children at a disadvantage to other children.

Nobody wants to have an oversubscribed school. Everybody wishes we could have places for everybody. In that scenario, what the Minister is proposing is that family members of past pupils should have priority. We are not talking about siblings. We have no difficulty with siblings. We are talking about children and grandchildren as is outlined in the Bill. Inevitably, if one's parents did not go to second-level school, as some people in the Chamber might be familiar with, or if one's grandparents did not go to second level school, which I am familiar with, one is at a disadvantage. If one is a Traveller child or does not come from the immediate area or from the country, one is also at a disadvantage.

The Minister may deny it but I will say anyway that these measures are in the Bill at the behest of the fee-paying private school sector because it has been lobbying every political party in the Oireachtas extensively for many years on the issue. The sector feels strongly about keeping a royal bloodline of succession going through its schools to maintain the old school network of fundraising. It means that sons and grandsons of former students of certain fee-paying boys' schools or daughters or granddaughters of certain fee-paying girls' schools can still have a connection with the school and still fundraise and all the rest of it. It is elitist, odious and wrong. It is only there at the behest of that sector.

I remind the Minister - he was at the Cabinet table - that the Labour Party vehemently opposed this measure under Deputy Jan O'Sullivan and tried to delete it. There was a compromise of 10% but this measure is the reason the legislation stalled and did not get past the Cabinet in the last Government. It is the reason we are only discussing it now.

While we all have to accept the constitutional reality about religion, etc., and there are measures in this Bill to try to change that, it is absolutely unconscionable that we would again allow the fee-paying private school sector to walk through the open door it seems to have with Cabinet members and get what it wants in this Bill. It is absolutely wrong. The Minister probably knows it is wrong. If he goes with this he will not get the emails from people in that sector.Those people are very powerful and influential and they normally get what they want. In this Oireachtas we should facilitate a Bill that speaks to the majority. I think the majority of people in this country did not have a parent or grandparent who went to the same school and they would find the measure elitist and wrong. I am interested to hear the Minister's comments as I will press the amendment. It will be interesting to see how other people react to it and I will call out those who do not support this. I feel more strongly about this measure than anything else in the Bill.