Sir, – As Diarmaid Ferriter points out ("The 1916 proclamation has many uses and misuses", March 12th) this week saw Proclamation Day marked in primary schools throughout the country.
The Department of Education has said “a major focus on Proclamation Day should be the unveiling and reading of each school’s own Proclamation for a new generation”.
One wonders whether this focus on a new Proclamation is because of the failure of our education system to live up to the ideals of the original document. Historians such as Mr Ferriter may debate the nuances of the phrase “cherishing all the children of the nation equally” but to me it seems pretty clear.
A 21st-century democracy that continues to uphold such legislation – the sole purpose of which is to discriminate against and segregate four-year-olds on the basis of religion – cannot be said to cherish its children equally.
Section 7 of the Equal Status Act is drafted quite deliberately to confer huge educational advantages on children of a particular religion, most obviously Catholic.
The fact is 96 per cent of taxpayer-funded primary schools are entitled under that law to turn away children on the basis of religion – in most schools religion is the top enrolment criterion when over-subscribed.
Not only is the philosophy underpinning such legislation wholly in opposition to that espoused in the Proclamation, it has real and practical effects beyond mere ideology.
Every year, schools really do turn away children of the “wrong” religion. Moreover, to avoid such a consequence, parents throughout the country are compelled by this Republic to baptise their children under duress.
It is noteworthy that the original Proclamation goes on to say that the “Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens”.
Is it any wonder the Department of Education is diverting attention away from this document in our primary schools?
– Yours, etc,
PADDY MONAHAN
Raheny,
Dublin.