AN attempt to prevent schools from having the right to refuse admission to pupils to preserve the religious ethos of educational establishments failed last night.
The effort to amend a key part of the Equal Status Bill was led by Irish National Teachers Organisation General Secretary, Mr Joe O'Toole, and was backed by three Church of Ireland members. It failed because five members did not demand that it be put to a vote.
Although the Bill was passed, Minister of State Mr Emmet Stagg conceded if the Employment Equality Bill did not survive the Supreme Court test set for it, the Equal Status Bill would have to be "revisited".
Pressing for an amendment that schools should not have the right to refuse admission purely on religious grounds, Mr O'Toole said in the week after the celebration of the 5th anniversary of the State's foundation, they must all wonder in what State they were living.
He believed the State could not say to parents that they could not send their children to a school because that young person was of the wrong religion. "We are designing a society which is anything but pluralist."
Dr Mary Henry (Ind) said that three-quarters of Church of Ireland primary schools had three teachers or fewer. How were they going to contend that the admission of a four-year-old non-Church of Ireland child would change the ethos of a school?
If parents got exercised because their offspring were not admitted, they would sue the school and not the State, she believed. Mr Shane Ross and Mr David Norris joined in the call for a vote.