Ivana Bacik (Independent)
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I welcome the Minister for Education and Skills to the House. I am very grateful to him for coming in to deal with this matter personally. I raise the matter of the need for the Minister to outline the measures he proposes to take in respect of ongoing issues concerning school admissions and governance at St. Patrick's national school, Greystones, County Wicklow. These issues concern the linking of school admission policies with church attendance. Has the Minister engaged directly with the school's patron to ensure these issues are resolved satisfactorily?

I raised this issue on the Order of Business last week. It has also been raised in the media and has been in the public domain. I understand local Deputies in Wicklow are also engaging with the Minister on it. Constituents of mine in the Dublin university constituency raised with me their serious concerns around a change in implementation of enrolment policy in the named school, where there has been a linking of attendance at church with school admission. This change in implementation of policy has resulted in the resignation of the principal, who I am told by all involved is highly experienced and respected, and the resignation of a board member. My constituents have raised with me that the manner in which the patron, the Church of Ireland, is engaging with these issues and in particular the manner in which it is engaging with parents raise serious concerns. I am told there was an extraordinary meeting of the parent-teacher association in August at which a strong majority expressed their concern and dissatisfaction with the way the board had handled the matter and expressed their support for the principal. She has, in fact, resigned and I understand her position has now been advertised.

My constituents have asked me to raise with the Minister their concerns about the governance of the school and the change in implementation of the admissions policy and they ask that the Department of Education and Skills intervene. Will the Minister indicate what, if any, engagement he has had with the patron and whether he proposes to appoint an inspector or some other mechanism to ensure this matter can be resolved? I should say that a contrary view has also been expressed to me by others involved in this issue who are satisfied with the board of management. I know there are various issues at stake and do not want to get involved in the detail of the matter.

To me, it seems this issue should be dealt with in the more general context. The Minister has stated his policy, which I absolutely support, of seeking to change the position whereby religious adherence and denomination are the deciding factors in school admissions policy. This matter raises broader issues about the general context of the need for separation of church and State in education, about which I have spoken many times. I have sought a more general debate in the Seanad on that. Some aspects of what the principal has said are in the public domain. One of the points made was that admission to State-funded education cannot and must not be an adjunct to or a collateral benefit of parochial engagement. This raises broader issues around schools' entitlement to require that parents demonstrate church attendance or engagement in a particular parish in order to ensure that their children become enrolled in particular schools.What does the Minister propose to do about this issue and, more broadly, about the issue of linking school admission policies with church or religious attendance and engagement?