Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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351. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he has sought legal advice on the constitutionality of his plans to alter religious discrimination in school admissions announced in the Committee on Education and Skills in July 2017; the details of that advice; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34842/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy is aware, following a public consultation process and a Forum on the role of religion in school admissions, I set out my preferred policy approach for amending primary school admissions legislation on the issue of the role that religion can play in the process.

Under the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill, which recently passed committee stage, schools which are not oversubscribed will have to accept all applicants. This means that religion will not be used as a criteria in admissions to 80% of schools.

It is in the 20% other schools that this issue now needs to be addressed.

My preference is to remove the capacity for state-funded denominational primary schools, where they are oversubscribed, to use religion as a criteria in admissions process except, in three scenarios:

- where it would not otherwise be possible to maintain the ethos of the school;

- where the school is established by a minority religion, in order to ensure that students of that religion can find a school place in a school of that ethos;

- where the school is established by a minority religion, in order to admit a student of that religion who resides in a community consistently served by that school.

I have taken preliminary legal advice on my proposals prior to announcing them at the Oireachtas Committee and on that basis am confident to proceed. My intention is, following more detailed engagement with the Office of the Attorney General, to introduce more detailed proposals on this in the autumn, with a view to having them enacted by the end of 2017, depending on the process in the Oireachtas.