Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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84. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on the report of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Nils MuiŽnieks, relating to religious discrimination in school admissions and in the running of schools; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16704/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The report referred to by the Deputy recommends that the exemption provided for denominational schools in Section 7(3)(c) of the Equal Status Act 2000 should be removed.

In this regard as the Deputy will be aware, I commenced a public consultation process from 24th January to 20th March 2017 on the role of denominational religion in the school admission process and possible approaches for making changes.

I have stated that 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 also 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 and I intend to reform the school admissions system in relation to the role that religion can play in that process. 

In the Consultation paper I 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.

As I specifically outlined in the consultation paper, I am mindful of the need to avoid possible pitfalls and unintended consequences with each of these approaches, including 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.

My Department has begun the process of examining the submissions and formulating next steps. I will then develop and implement measures to deal with this issue.

With regard to the teaching of religion in schools, Article 44 of the Constitution and Section 30 of the Education Act 1998 provides that parents have a right to have their children opt out of religion classes if they so wish.

The Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016 includes a specific requirement that school enrolment policies must include details of the school’s arrangements for any students who do not wish to attend religious instruction. This is an important measure which will help ensure transparency from the outset as to how a school will uphold the rights of parents in this regard.