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IT IS to be hoped last night’s unusually robust speech by the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin will alert the wider public to the devastating impact of Budget cuts on Protestant schools. The Most Rev Dr John Neill criticised the “very discriminatory nature of the cuts’’ and what he termed an “unbelievable lack of understanding” by the Department of Education. Last October, Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe withdrew a range of ancillary grants and supports to Protestant schools. He also decided to increase the pupil-teacher ratio in Protestant and other fee-paying schools. The cuts mark a departure from an honourable tradition stretching back over 40 years where the State has sought to protect and nurture Protestant education.

Since the introduction of free education in 1967, Protestant voluntary schools have been treated and designated by successive ministers for education as being within “the free scheme” as block grant schools. In doing so, the State acknowledged how these schools cater for the educational needs of a dispersed Protestant community where no “free’’ Protestant school is available to parents.