The Department of Education was accused at the Church of Ireland general synod in Kilkenny yesterday of paying "no more than lip service . . . to the whole concept of church education". Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Making the accusation, the Archbishop of Dublin, Most Rev John Neill, also said "it seems that those planning to cope with rising numbers seeking school places have little realisation of the contribution of the distinctive faith schools".
Responding to sudden demand for places, "the department has asked schools to greatly expand in size. Schools with four classes are being asked to virtually double in size overnight, and those with eight class teachers are being asked to become two-stream or even more. This resulted in serious consequences for the Church of Ireland community," he said.
"The Church of Ireland in the Republic has shown substantial growth in the last two national censuses and after a period of decline is now back to levels of 60 years ago - and continues to grow at a rate slightly ahead of the population as a whole - but we simply cannot provide sufficient pupils in most places for such greatly enlarged schools," he said.
"Church of Ireland schools will struggle to meet the criteria that the State proposes to apply to school development in the future. Some of our schools do indeed need to grow, but not at the rate proposed. The result is that in some areas, the Church of Ireland pupils would become a minority in their own schools.
"This, if allowed to develop, would seriously undermine the ethos of the school, and indeed the close link between church and school that is very important in so many places," the archbishop said.
A better solution "would be more moderate growth in the existing schools along with the building of new schools," he said.