Public poll needed to end school entry rule
However, the minister said she would like to be able to ensure schools could not turn away pupils just because they do not belong to a particular religion.
The School Admissions Bill, which Ms O’Sullivan published in April, would allow schools to continue giving preference to children of the same religious faith in situations where there are fewer places available than the number of children seeking to enrol in a given year.
While faith-based schools are in the minority among newly sanctioned schools in recent years, such new schools are required under agreements with the Department of Education to allow children from a different religious background — or of no religion — within the local area to enrol ahead of children of the school’s faith who are not from the area.
Ms O’Sullivan said this is a principle she would like to extend to existing schools, but the legal advice is that the Constitution would not allow her to do so retrospectively.
“So maybe we should be putting it to the people, I don’t know, but that is the problem,” she told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland. “I would like to be able to do what we’re doing with the new schools with all schools.”
More than 90% of the country’s 3,300 primary schools are under the patronage of the local bishop, mostly Catholic, but also Church of Ireland patrons, and so are effectively privately owned despite being publicly funded.
Asked if Ms O’Sullivan was proposing a referendum on the issue, her spokesperson later said that is not on the agenda at the moment, but rather Ms O’Sullivan was describing the reason why the new law could not end the current situation. However, the idea could possibly become an issue for consideration in the Labour Party manifesto ahead of the next general election, for which Ms O’Sullivan was last month selected to run again in her Limerick City constituency.
Ms O’Sullivan faces opposition from some Fine Gael TDs over her proposal that regulations underpinned by the law would limit to 10% the number of places a school could reserve for the children of past pupils.
While it is less than the 25% suggested by her predecessor, Rúairí Quinn, when he published drafts of the bill and regulations, the Oireachtas Education Committee recommended schools not be allowed hold any places for past pupils’ children.
A fairly mute initial Fine Gael reaction to her 10% suggestion in April was attributed to the expectation that regulations were unlikely to be adopted before the election, now less than nine months away.
Ms O’Sullivan’s spokesperson told the Irish Examiner she hopes to have the School Admissions Bill passed, the regulations put out for consultation, approved by the Cabinet, and signed off before the current Dáil’s five-year term ends.
