A NEW forum on school patronage, due to report before the end of this year, will examine ways in which the role of the Catholic Church can be scaled back.
Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn said yesterday the forum would not be a talking shop. Instead it would focus as a priority on the means by which schools could be transferred from Catholic patronage, thus providing greater diversity and choice for parents.
In his first official engagement, Mr Quinn also stood over criticism of senior Department of Education officials that he made two years ago upon publication of the Ryan report. He said then that Catholic groups had undue influence on policy.
“What I said is on the record,” he said. He added that he had experienced obfuscation and delay as he sought material from the department.
The programme for government includes a commitment to establish a forum on patronage and pluralism. The establishment of such a forum was a long-standing demand of the Irish Nationa Teachers’ Organisation (INTO). The programme provides for the inclusion of the forum’s recommendations in a White Paper for implementation by the Government in 2012.
Addressing managers of the country’s Catholic primary schools, Mr Quinn said the forum would begin work as soon as possible and complete it in nine months’ time.
The Minister received a standing ovation from members of the Catholic Primary School Management Association.
Last night, the INTO welcomed the establishment of the forum. “Ireland’s schools must reflect the country’s new, diverse population,” said Sheila Nunan, general secretary of the union.
The debate on school patronage was kick-started three years ago when Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin acknowledged the Catholic Church was overrepresented in Irish education. The church controls about 90 per cent of the State’s 3,200 primary schools.
Mr Quinn told delegates yesterday: “We have to provide for an array of choice in our education system and ensure that different forms of patronage reflect the diversity of our modern society and the choices of parents.”
He said as Minister he was determined to “hit the ground running” by taking up the challenge presented by Archbishop Martin and by providing a school patronage system reflecting the reality of modern Ireland.
Mr Quinn also disputed claims that the Labour Party has a secular agenda, particularly in relation to education.
“In fact, the Labour Party has a pluralist ethos which effects the republican nature of our Constitution and where respect for diversity is a fundamental value,” he said.
