Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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403. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the guidelines for children who are opted out of religious instruction; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [54564/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The provisions of the Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018 requires, where schools provide religious instruction, they must clearly set out in their admission policies the school’s arrangements for students, where the parent or in the case of a student who has reached the age of 18 years, the student, has requested that the student attend the school without attending religious instruction in the school. The manner in which any school ensures that the right to not attend religion instruction classes is upheld, is a matter for the school concerned. Each individual school must determine the particular arrangements which are most appropriate in its individual circumstances having regard to local issues such as available space, supervision requirements and how the school concerned organises classes, and other relevant matters.

Guidance for good practice is available to schools in the follow-up paper to the Report of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector which was published in 2014. The paper provides an overview of different types of arrangements that schools can put in place to facilitate parents who do not wish for their children to attend religious instruction.?The paper encourages school authorities to consider their policies and practices and to review whether they are taking the steps necessary to welcome all pupils and make them feel included.

The Catholic Schools Partnership has published guidelines for Catholic schools in relation to the inclusion of all pupils. These guidelines also support schools to facilitate requests to attend school without attending religious instruction.?Most primary schools are State-aided parish schools, with the local bishop as patron. It is recognised, including by the Catholic school patrons, that our schools need to more accurately reflect the reality of our increasingly diverse society and meet the expectations parents have for their children.

The Programme for Government commits to seeking to increase choice for parents by ensuring that families can access both multi/non-denominational and faith-based education.

The opportunities for the establishment of new multidenominational primary schools have declined. Demographic trends and projections at primary school level nationally have peaked. In order to maximise the use of the existing school estate, the Department has developed the schools reconfiguration process. The schools reconfiguration process aims to meet demand from local school communities and to accelerate the delivery of multi-denominational schools by transferring schools to multi-denominational patrons, where school communities support this.

The Department of Education and Youth has published a comprehensive Education Plan 2025 that outlines a significant body of work being undertaken to deliver for everyone in our school and youth services’ communities.

As part of the actions, I plan to undertake a consultation process with relevant stakeholders on the development of best practice guidance for primary schools in relation to providing for their diversity of enrolment, in the context of catering for children whose parents/guardians have requested their children attend school without attending religious instruction. There are over 100 actions in this plan including a commitment to launch a survey of primary school parents and guardians and preschool parents and guardians on their preferences on important aspects of school provision and choice, such as the future patronage and ethos of their school and facilitation of requests not to attend religious instruction.