Madam, – I refer to Fintan O’Toole’s article (“Agents of a foreign state should not control our schools”, Opinion, December 8th).
I think that it is well known at this stage that Mr O’Toole is a committed secularist, as he is entitled to be, and argues his case forcefully when the opportunity arises, as he is entitled to do. What he is not entitled to do is to misrepresent the contents of an Act of the Oireachtas with the intention of presenting it, and by extension the parliament that enacted it, in an unfavourable light, making the Act appear as a craven capitulation to the demands of “a monarch in Rome” and unworthy of a state that describes itself as a Republic.
At paragraph five of his article he states: “The board’s chairperson is legally obliged, according to the Education Act (not a medieval statute but passed in 1998) to act on behalf of the bishop: ‘The chairperson shall be appointed by the patron and his/her authority shall derive from such appointment’.” These words do not appear anywhere in the Education Act 1998, or in any other of the education-related statutes that came after it.
At paragraph six he states: “There is a timid suggestion in the Act that the bishop in making this key appointment should ‘give due consideration to the opportunity to engage in a consultative process within the wider school community’.” These words do not appear anywhere in the 1998 Act or in any other education Act either.
Both statements quoted by Mr O’Toole in fact appear on page 49 of the 2007 edition of a handbook published by the Catholic Primary School Management Association (CPSMA) for the information of members of boards of management of Catholic national schools. – Yours, etc,