The chief executive of the National Parents' Council has called on the Catholic Church to make its position on school admissions explicit. Ms Fionnuala Kilfeather was responding to comments by the Bishop of Meath, Dr Michael Smith, in which he questioned whether the church should be obliged to educate those with no commitment to the faith.
The Catholic information office said yesterday there was no change in its school enrolment policy, where Catholic schools were open to all children. However, many bishops, it said, would undoubtedly have some sympathy for Dr Smith's remarks when faced with a similar situation in which parents who had lost contact with the church were availing of Catholic schools.
In her statement Ms Kilfeather said: "If the church proposes that it will not provide an education service for all the children in the community served by the school, the State needs to make provision for other schools. We will then have a position already common in other states where there is a non-denominational state education system in parallel with schools owned by groups with a specific religious or other ethos."
Ms Kilfeather said the current practice whereby different dioceses had different enrolment policies was unsatisfactory. A radical rethink was also required by the Government; it needed to examine how the education system could serve the needs of parents, children and society in an increasingly pluralist and multi-ethnic Ireland.
Ms Deirdre O'Donoghue, co-ordinator of Educate Together, the umbrella group for multi-denominational schools, expressed the hope that Dr Smith's comments would encourage debate on the provision of primary education in a changing Ireland.
The continuation of State support for a monopoly provision of denominational education could not be justified, she said, on moral, social or legal grounds. "This monopoly is bad for society and denies parents their rights."
The State, she said, must develop a national network of State-owned schools in which the ethical, religious and cultural preferences of all parents are supported equally.
The recent Report of the Commission on School Accommodation proposed that local communities be consulted on their choice of school before it was established in an area. But this proposal has yet to take root in the Irish educational system.