Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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81. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the status of the Equal Status (Admissions to School) Bill 2016; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24661/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy is aware, last June, the Government proposed and the Dáil agreed that the Labour Party’s Equal Status (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016 would come before the Dáil for a second stage hearing no earlier than 28th June 2017 to allow for scrutiny by the Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills and for the Committee to consider submissions and hold hearings.

As the Deputy will be aware I ran 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. The written consultation process attracted almost 1,000 responses from a combination of individuals, schools and stakeholder organisations.

I previously advised that following the receipt and analysis of written submissions, consideration would be given as to whether any additional steps are needed as part of the consultation process. Accordingly, I recently announced that I will hold a Forum on the role of Religion in Primary School Admissions in the coming days.

My aim is to find a solution which addresses the issues in this area, while respecting the strongly held and legitimate desire of minority religious groups to run schools which are genuinely of their own ethos.