Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister of State rightly says, it is the few. Unfortunately it is the few we have to legislate for. My problem is that the Minister of State is putting the patron under an obligation to ensure something they do not have the power to ensure without dissolving the board. This is prior to the section 37A process. Leaving section 37A aside, if a board of management is not complying with the patron's attempt to ensure co-operation and the patron moves against the board, will the Minister of State support that move? The Minister has to approve of the dissolution of a board. It is a serious matter to put a legal obligation on a patron in this situation. It is all the more serious where they do not have any sanction other than to seek the dissolution of a board of management with the support of the Minister. What the Minister of State is saying to me, in effect, is that the problem will be solved because she will, with a heavy heart, invoke section 37A. She has not solved the patron's problem. She has created a legal obligation on a patron to do something and it has been unable to do it, only because its board of management has refused to co-operate with. The Minister of State is putting the patron in a situation where it will have broken the law by not managing to ensure co-operation. It will have broken the law because it has a board that refuses to co-operate. The thing is covered in stigma, from everything that has been said in this House this evening. I am asking the Minister of State if she would then support the patron if it sought to remove the board as a result of that failure to co-operate. That failure to co-operate is prior to the section 37A process.

I do not understand why it is not provided that the patron and the boards "shall work" to co-operate with the NCSE to provide. Then when they do not, we go for section 37A and it is entirely blameworthy but nobody has broken the law. This is a situation where the patron has broken the law and has not had the power to ensure it does not break the law. Why is it a problem to link this in with section 37A? I think the aim of the Minister of State is to get the patron into the process and I agree with that. I do not know of a patron that does not want special classes. I do not know of a patron that is not active in this area. What is the mischief of taking on my amendment so as to link it with section 37A?