FINTAN O'Toole's article on education and religion last Friday was serious and thought provoking. It was wrong in some important respects, but it was clearly written out of a sense of concern. As the Ministers referred to in the article, we would like to respond.

Fintan's concern arises from his interpretation of two pieces of legislation, one published and one as yet unpublished. Those two Bills are far reaching and radical. The purpose of one Bill is to combat discrimination in employment; the purpose of the other is to broaden the democratic base of our education system and to make it more responsible and accountable to the whole community.

Clearly, if we were to use either or both of those Bills to "sanction an ethos of sectarian education", as Fintan O'Toole's article implies, we would be undermining the whole spirit and purpose of the legislation. In fact, we would both strongly oppose, on grounds of principle, any legislative measure which had a sectarian content, or was driven by sectarian purposes.

The purpose of the first piece of legislation, the Employment Equality Bill, is to deal with discrimination in employment - all employment. It aims to tackle discrimination in relation to recruitment, training, promotion and dismissal. It affords protection against discrimination on grounds of gender, marital and family status, religion, age, disability, race, sexual orientation, or membership of the travelling community. The Bill is based on a commitment to equality and to fairness.

The purpose of the Education Bill is to establish the structures will make our education system accountable and responsive to the needs of the wider community into the next century. It aims, for instance, to set up a system of school governance, which will make school boards representatives of all the interests in a school.

It aims to encourage and enable those boards, among other things, to support the characteristic spirit of the school as determined by the cultural, educational, moral, religious or, social values which inform and underpin the objectives of the school.

It aims to promote respect for the diversity of values, beliefs and traditions in society. The Education Bill, for the first time, will set out the rights of patrons, teachers, parents and the community, and will spell out roles for each.

So how does legislation like this end up "setting sectarian education in concrete", to use Fintan O'Toole's phrase? The answer is it doesn't.

Fintan believes it does because he is wrong on a few salient points. He is wrong when he says that religious schools and hospitals are excluded from the scope of the Employment Equality Bill.

He is wrong when he refers to an "apparent willingness" to copper fasten church control in forthcoming legislation. He is wrong when he refers to "proposals" to give the churches effective control over the promotion of teachers within schools.

But he is right when he talks about the need for balance. Our legislation is drawn against the background of a Constitution - not the Government's constitution, nor even the one some commentators would perhaps like to see, but the people's Constitution, the lone we are governed by.

Our legislation recognises that "nobody believes it is easy to sort out the relationship between a modern democracy ... and a church based education system. Nobody wants to get the churches out of education ..."

These are Fintan's words - they bare a good encapsulation of the balance we are trying to strike.

In short, and not to put too fine a point on it, the Employment Equality Bill sets out to address many issues of discrimination. Among them, it sets out to address the fact that, at present, teachers who believe they are discriminated against on grounds of religion in an appointment, or in any other aspect of their employment, have no legal right to challenge that.

The Employment Equality Bill, gives them that right, for the first time. It does more - it provides new legal remedies and mechanisms to ensure that any such complaint will be independently adjudicated.

In other words, the Bill will give teachers, applicants for teaching posts, and any other employee or prospective employee of a denominational institution a place to go if they, feel they have been unfairly treated.

If people are discriminated against because of say, private lives or private relationships, or because of what they believe in, the person who practises such discrimination will have a case to answer. No other approach would be possible in a society that believes in greater equality and fairness.

But and there had to be a but we have to recognise also that there are moments and times and circumstances when differences of treatment have to be allowed. Religions in Ireland, majority and minority, struggle to maintain an ethos to which they are passionately committed. Is a modern pluralist state to deny them that right? Whatever the religious ethos of a school is, schools have a right under our Constitution - and under the pluralist values we espouse - to protect that ethos.

That's what the Bill provides for. It makes an exception, to allow religious institutions to act when that is essential to protect their ethos. It is no part of our intention to encourage school or hospital managers to be inquiring into the private lives of their employees, or to be promoting sectarianism. Our aim is pluralism.

Sometimes the achievement of greater equality gives rise to a need for positive discrimination. By the same token, pluralism sometimes - gives rise to the need to protect the rights of people and organisations, who are committed to their own legitimate venues.

Of course, it can be argued that even with the best advice available, the original drafting of a Bill or any of its sections can leave something to be desired. That's why we have the Committee Stage for all legislation, to enable us to reach the broadest possible consensus on what is the best way forward.

Where this particular section of the Employment Equality Bill is concerned, a dialogue has already been initiated with interested parties, especially teachers. The purpose of that dialogue is to ensure that between us all we come up with the best formation at the end of the day, and there won't be a minute's hesitation in ringing forward changes if they are found to attract a broader consensus. Because the other piece of legislation referred to by Fintan O'Toole, the Education Bill, has not yet been published, we cannot comment on it in detail. We would both hope that when Fintan, and your readers generally, have a chance to steady it, it will be clear that our aim and purpose is democracy, accountability, and sensitivity in the education system.

If any further queries arise after publication of the Bill, we hope that Fintan O'Toole returns to the subject. We would welcome his further insights.

One last point. As a recitation of facts would show, we have worked with, and we are working with, the Crumlin MultiDenominational School. It is neither true nor fair to imply otherwise. There are difficult problems to be overcome, but we are determined (and have been from the beginning) to do what we can to overcome them. We would be more than happy to supply Fintan O'Toole with a full history of the development of the problem, to enable him to come to a more balanced judgment.