Bishop's 'reassured' on religious teaching after O'Keeffe meeting

The Catholic Commission on Education said it was reassured on the issue of religious instruction in the State¿s new Community National Schools following a meeting with the Minister for Education Batt O¿Keefe at Government Buildings this evening.

The members of the Commission on Education of the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference met Mr O'Keeffe to discuss the provision of religious education for Catholic children in the new model schools.

The first primary schools run by the State, under the auspices of the County Dublin Vocational Education Committee (VEC), opened in September marking an historic departure from the church-based pattern of school patronage.

At present, more than 3,000 of the 3,200 primary schools in the State operate under the patronage of the Catholic Church. It is planned that hundreds of schools will open under the new community model in the next decade as the primary school population grows by more than 100,000.

The Bishops said they wanted to see the model of patronage in community national schools succeed and emphasised their wish to be able to assure Catholic parents of pupils in such schools that their children would follow the same religious education programme as in a Catholic school.

Speaking after the meeting, Bishop Leo O'Reilly, chair of the commission said Mr O'Keeffe had given an assurance that the commitment to provide religious instruction on a denominational basis during the school day for pupils whose parents requested it still stood.

He described the meeting as ¿cordial and constructive¿ and said the commission were ¿reassured by the outcome¿.

¿We welcome the Minister's reaffirmation of the policy on religious education provision originally announced and we look forward to it being implemented accordingly. Once again we welcome this additional model of patronage and wish it well,¿ he concluded.

In two community national schools opened in west Dublin in September, religious instruction is being taught during school hours unlike, the model in Educate Together schools where it takes place outside the regular school day.