Sir, – In relation to your article "Discrimination fears over school admissions Bill" (November 23rd), it seems there is a simple solution to the "complex issues" regarding the baptism barrier.
Let us assume each school has a defined catchment area. Then each child lives in the catchment area of a number of schools.
If all of these schools had an admissions policy with preference on religious grounds unfavourable to that child, we would have a problem.
If we want to allow for the existence of schools that provide education in an environment that promotes certain religious values, while also ensuring that each child can freely access a school in their locality, we can amend the current equality legalisation to remove the right of schools to discriminate in the above scenario. That is, allow a school to apply selection on religious grounds to an applicant only if a local non-discriminating school exists for that applicant.
The interesting consequence of this simple rule is that it provides an incentive to divest where there are no multi-denominational or non-denominational schools in an area, as divesting one school restores the right to select to the remaining religious schools.
This rule should drive us towards a happy equilibrium where parents have maximum practical chance of access to a local school matching their ethos. – Yours, etc,
ROGER MARTIN,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.