Outrageous - Discrimination in our schools

IT is an outrage that school authorities can refuse children a place in their local school because they have not been baptised in the Catholic Church.

This divisive and defining abuse smacks of bigotry, Catholic dominance over what is a civic matter, intolerance and an entirely inappropriate hijacking of taxpayers’ money.

This ongoing scandal was raised again yesterday by Sinn Féin TD Jonathan O’Brien who said he had met with parents whose children had been denied a place in a local primary school and forced to make a two-hour journey to the national school that offered them a place.