Letters

Schools and patronage

Department of Education continues to treat transfers of patronage as a pilot project

Fri Sept 08 2023 - 00:07

Sir, – Retired Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin says that there is “a huge amount of resistance among the Catholic education establishment” to efforts to reconfigure school patronage (News, September 2nd). This frank admission sits rather uncomfortably against Minister for Education Norma Foley’s statement on June 29th that: “The Council for Education of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the relevant bishops confirmed their willingness to engage and co-operate with the Department” in respect of the latest examination of pilot areas. Meanwhile, the fact that the Department of Education continues to treat transfers of patronage as a pilot project, more than 11 years since the Advisory Group to the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector delivered its report in 2012, adds a certain comic irony to its own failures in this area.

Archbishop Martin may not expect to see women priests in his lifetime, but he is unlikely to see much change in school patronage, either.

Much like the Government’s proposed citizens’ assembly on the future of education, meaningful debate on the continued role of religion in Irish education remains elusive.

Education Equality has proposed that religious instruction and worship be moved outside core hours on an opt-in basis in all publicly funded schools.

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Is the Government considering an alternative approach that would effectively vindicate families’ human and constitutional rights? Apparently not. The dead horse of school divestment must be flogged, no matter how little it moves. – Yours, etc,

DAVID GRAHAM,

Communications Officer,

Education Equality,

Malahide,

Co Dublin.