Schools watchdog calls for ban on refusing admission on religious grounds

Schools should be legally prevented from refusing admission on the basis of a child’s religion, the State’s rights watchdog has said.

The call by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission comes as parent and campaigner Paddy Monahan handed in a petition to the Government, signed by 20,000 people, demanding an end to “religious discrimination” in education.

In its observation on the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2015, the IHREC recommends:

• The Equal Status Acts be amended so that “no child should be given preferential access” to a publicly-funded school on the basis of their religion.
• This could include a derogation, granted by the education minister, in the case of a specific school where refusal to admit a student is proved to be essential to maintain its ethos.
• Schools should set “minimum standards” for exemptions for students who do not want to take part in religious instruction — citing one case where a child was consigned to the corridor.
• Schools should no longer be allowed to use the fact that the parent of a child went to the school as a factor in admissions.

The IHREC said laws here could be in breach of the EU Race Equality Directive.

It said around 260,000 people classified as ‘non-Irish’ by the CSO were not Catholic. In addition, there has been a four-fold jump in the total number of people with no religion — with almost 15,000 children classified as having no religion.

“In light of these statistics,” it said, “it is foreseeable the religious exemption clause under the Equal Status Acts, and reproduced in the 2015 bill, could place children of non-Irish or new migrant communities at a particular disadvantage when compared with children of Irish parents, in potential violation of the EU Race Equality Directive.”

Mr Monahan, from Raheny, north Dublin, handed in a petition, signed by almost 20,000 people, to the Government.

“I started the petition because my little boy is eight months old and I realised the school around the corner wouldn’t take him because he isn’t baptised,” he said.

“I thought that’s madness because it’s a taxpayer-funded school and then I realised that 96% of schools are the same. They have the right to turn away a child based on [their] religion.”

• www.ihrec.ie