Church's role in schools

Madam, – I read this week with delight that a well-needed school has been agreed in Doughiska/Roscam in Galway city where I …

Madam, – I read this week with delight that a well-needed school has been agreed in Doughiska/Roscam in Galway city where I live. However, to my shock and dismay I see that the patron is once again the Catholic Church!

After all that has happened surely this should have been a non- or multi-denominational church?

I am an Irish-born Catholic and so is my child, so I have two options. First, I can send my child to this primary school and he sits on his own when religious education is being taught and feels like an outcast. Second, I send him to the Educate Together school on the other side of the city, away from his friends. Are we not meant to live in a secular pluralist society where there is no discrimination for or against religion?

Is it not time the Irish Government governed its own schools? This is plain and simple discrimination in the 21st century. – Yours, etc,

PADRAIG O’BRIEN,

Roscam,

Galway.