GAELSCOIL DISPUTE

RODDY PEAVOY,

RODDY PEAVOY,

Sir, - Your correspondent Ivana Bacik (April 23rd) wrote that the dispute at the Gaelscoil in Dunboyne "raises again the need for a true separation of Church and State". She says that the withdrawal of national schools "from the control and management of religious denominations" is a prerequisite for "a truly secular and pluralist republic".

Such aberrant reasoning distorts the meaning of pluralism. While pluralism certainly must embrace secularism it must also accommodate denominationalism. To posit that pluralism must exclude religion is a nonsense. - Yours, etc.,

RODDY PEAVOY, Editor, Teacher Magazine,Harrington Street, Dublin 8.