Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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139. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he has reviewed the recently published Labour Party's Equal Status Admission to Schools Bill; his views on the aims and objectives of the Bill; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10680/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy is aware, I have made my position clear on the issue of the role of religion in school admissions. I have stated that, while it is to be welcomed and respected that many parents wish their children to receive education in their faith, I believe that it is unfair that preference is given by publicly funded religious schools to children of their own religion who might live some distance away, ahead of children of a different religion or of no religion who live close to the school. I have also stated that I believe that it is unfair that parents, who might otherwise not do so, feel pressure to baptise their children in order to gain admission to the local school. In that respect I agree with the aims of the Labour Party’s Bill.

I intend to reform the school admissions system in relation to the role that religion can play in the admissions process. I have set out four possible approaches for dealing with the issue, in primary schools in the first instance, including:

A catchment area approach, prohibiting religious schools from giving preference to children of their own religion who live outside the catchment area ahead of non-religious children who live inside the catchment;

A ‘nearest school rule’, allowing religious schools to give preference to a religious child only where it is that child’s nearest school of that particular religion;

A quota system, which would allow a religious school give preference to children of its own religion in respect of only a certain proportion of places, meaning that the remaining places would be allocated based on other admissions criteria – proximity to the school, lottery etc.;

An outright prohibition on religious schools using religion as a factor in admissions, meaning that all places would be allocated based on other factors. Within this approach, there is capacity to allow religious schools to require parents or students to indicate some support or respect for the ethos of the school.

I am also mindful of the need to avoid possible pitfalls and unintended consequences with each of these approaches, including most importantly possible impacts on minority religions and on the wishes of Protestant, Jewish, Islamic and other communities to be able to run schools in accordance with their ethos and admit children from their communities to attend those schools.

Other possible consequences to be avoided include possible breaches of the constitution, technical and administrative difficulties impacting on the capacity to effectively run the system of over 4000 schools and the possibility of creating ‘postcode lotteries’, such as other countries have experienced, resulting in pronounced divergence in the quality of schools in more advantaged compared to less advantaged areas.

On 24th January I commenced a process of consultation on this issue which will run until 20th March.  The details of the consultation process and how to make a submission are available on my Department’s website www.education.ie and specifically at the following link:

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I am interested in hearing the views of the groups who stand to be impacted by changes as well as any members of the public with views on the issue.

This phase of receiving written submissions is part of the broader 12 week consultation process which will include additional steps, including any follow-up consultation that is required, collation of responses and development of next steps.

These steps will require additional time, and I am conscious of legislative deadlines impacting on this work, in particular the Equal Status (Admissions to Schools) Bill, referred to by the Deputy, which is due before the House again shortly.