Sir, – Breda O'Brien in her diatribe against the proposed removal of rule 68 (the wording of which she herself agrees is "dated") claims that Labour is pandering to a tiny minority ("Removing 'religious spirit' from schools an act of desperation", Opinion & Analysis, December 12th). Yet she offers no evidence to support this claim. Does she honestly think that if there were a referendum on the matter, the majority of the electorate would vote for the retention of this regulatory fossil?
She goes on to say, “The vast majority of parents do not want to lose their local Catholic school”. According to a recent Behaviour & Attitudes poll, nearly 85 per cent of people said the education system should be reformed to ensure no child is excluded on the basis of their religion, and 77 per cent said they do not think a school should have the right to refuse admission to a child on religious grounds. The recent Ipsos MRBI “Family Values” poll revealed that the vast majority of people surveyed said that children should have equal access to school places and that most people do not believe baptised children should receive priority for spaces in their local school.
She then draws on the experience in the UK. A recent report from the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life found that allowing schools to select pupils on the basis of religion has been socially divisive, saying “in our view it is not clear that segregation of young people into faith schools has promoted greater cohesion or that it has not in fact been socially divisive and led rather to greater misunderstanding and tension” (“United Kingdom faith schools socially divisive, states report”, December 8th).
Finally, she says talks of “an inclusive, child-centred ethos”. Is this the same “ethos” that can discriminate against children on the grounds of religion? Section 7 (3) (c) of the Equal Status Act, 2000 is, in truth, the “no room at the inn” clause. How’s that for “inclusive”? – Yours, etc,
ROB SADLIER,
Dublin 16.
Sir, – Breda O’Brien is incorrect to suggest that rule 103 permitting corporal punishment in national schools is still on the books. It was repealed by circular in 1982. Noticeably absent from her survey of the dated national school rules was rule 69, which mandates that the religion of students be obtained from parents and “preferably the father”. This is the era where religion of a particularly authoritarian and patriarchal kind held sway. It is surely no model to adhere to purely for the sake of conservatism. Scrapping dated rules is a way of securing a new balance that is not tied to reactionary dogmatism. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN DINEEN, LLM
Clontarf, Dublin 3.
Sir, – Breda O’Brien writes that in Britain people lie and cheat to get their children into schools that are perceived to be better. It must be a comfort to her to know that because of rule 68 in primary schools and the preponderance of faith schools, with their intrinsic ethos, in the secondary cycle, such a thing could never happen in Ireland. – Yours, etc,
SAM GLENDENNING,
Birr, Co Offaly.