Cuts threatening Protestant schools, says Archbishop

THE Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin Dr John Neill has accused the Government of threatening the future of Protestant schools by imposing the same cuts on them as those hitting other fee-paying schools.

More than 20 Protestant second-level schools are among the 80-plus fee-paying schools hit with harder cuts to teacher numbers than those imposed on the other 650 second-level schools when they reopened last month, and they are also losing funding for caretaker and secretarial staff.

But the Protestant education community has claimed they are being treated unfairly as most of their second-level schools cater for students from a wide geographical catchment because there are no schools nearby to allow them to avail of their constitutional right to be educated in accordance with their religious ethos.