Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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506. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will revisit the arrangement in education and training board schools with religious denominations to have a particular class time per week dedicated to religious instruction in a particular denomination's teachings; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42534/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I think it would useful to set out the position in relation to second level schools that have an Education and Training Board as Patron under the provisions of the Education Act 1998.

In all cases the Education and Training Board is the sole patron. Traditionally all of the schools have been multi denominational and provide for children of all religions and none. This applies equally to the second level schools where a legal agreement was entered into with a diocese or a diocese and religious order at the time the school was formed, often involving the amalgamation of a vocational school and a catholic voluntary secondary school.

These agreements included a provision relating to religious worship and instruction. Notwithstanding that the agreements were entered into with catholic bishops or orders the provision in the agreements requires that the religious worship attended by any pupil and the religious instruction given by the ETB school must be in accordance with the rites, practice and teaching of the religious denomination to which the pupil belongs. The arrangements regarding religious worship and instruction reflect the definition of the schools as being multi-denominational.

The term multi-denominational is also applied by Educate Together in relation to schools under its patronage but the usage can be distinguished from its application to ETB schools as Educate Together schools exclude any religious worship or instruction from the ordinary life of the school, and therefore could be described as non-denominational.

The position of ETB schools and religious worship and instruction is evolving with an agreement reached between one ETB and Educate Together in respect of one school and a second such school in planning by another ETB. The agreements underpinning these two school excludes religious worship and instruction and can be defined as non-denominational.

While I have no plans to seek to set aside the legal agreements referred to by the Deputy, as the demographics and composition of communities change in some communities a review of the configuration of second level provision could become timely.