Pluralist Ireland: Labour’s position contradictory

THERE is a strong whiff of hypocrisy about Labour’s proposal to abolish a 50-year-old rule giving religion a privileged status in Ireland’s primary schools while at the same time, as a partner in the coalition government, voting down a popular amendment that would rid the education system of a biased admissions policy favouring Catholic children over those of minority religions and others who have not been baptised.

The move by Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan is to be welcomed and yet a cynic might see it as damage-limitation exercise. By promising to repeal the controversial regulation next month, the initiative is clearly aimed at an early general election. It should be remembered however, that a major report commissioned by the Government nearly four years ago called for the removal of the outdated sentiments of Rule 68 which the minister describes as “archaic”.

The question is why have they waited so long?

The extent to which its philosophy is out of step with a rapidly changing, modern and more diverse Ireland in terms of its social, linguistic and religious mores, can be seen from the wording of a rule based on an ethos no longer in vogue. It states bluntly that “of all parts of the school curriculum, religious instruction is by far the most important, as its subject matter, god’s honour and service, includes the proper use of all man’s faculties”.

The authoritarian language in which Rule 68 is framed smacks of an era that prevailed around five decades ago, a time when Catholic Church edicts were hardly questioned by the public because people felt it was only natural to maintain the dominance of religious education, regarding it as more important than, say, maths, French or German. Like it or not, as some parents who have tried to exclude a child from religious education have discovered, this rule still has the power to influence increasingly contentious policies today.

Giving a glimpse of the extent to which attitudes are changing, the findings of a behaviour and attitudes survey released yesterday show that 84% of people believe education should be reformed to prevent the exclusion of a child due to their religion or lack of a religion.

Unfortunately, Ms O’Sullivan has finally told the Dáil that that her Admissions to Schools Bill, published earlier this year, will not be enacted before the election. Astonishingly, despite promising to abolish such an antediluvian instrument as Rule 68, her bill does not address one of the burning issues of the day, namely the right of schools to give preference to children of their own religion especially when parents of other persuasions are seeking a school for their child.

With the Government blatantly out of touch with people in the grassroots of society and the authority of the church greatly diminished by a series of scandals, it is perhaps a sign of social health that heated debate is now raging about the waning influence of the hierarchy over a far more complex and multi-racial Ireland.

It is important to hold this debate in an atmosphere of calm discussion without creating a poisonous divide between those on both sides of the argument.