THE Irish National Teachers' Organisation has criticised double standards in the Minister for Education's attitude to primary education.
The union's comments follow the decision by Ms Breathnach to drop a religious veto over the appointment of teachers in primary schools from her Education Bill. The INTO has consistently campaigned against the inclusion of the veto in the Bill.
Senator Joe O'Toole, general secretary of the INTO, said he welcomed the fact that the Bill was not going to discriminate against teachers in their appointment to jobs but said it was "inexplicable" that she was prepared to allow discrimination against children in their choice of schools.
Initially, the Minister's Education Bill had proposed to give churches statutory powers to block the appointment of teachers whose religion differed from that governing a school, if it was believed such an appointment would damage the school's ethos.
Her revised Bill will now recognise existing appointments procedures but will allow for changes if they are agreed with the school owners.
Senator O'Toole welcomed the decision to eliminate discrimination against teachers on religious grounds from the Bill, but criticised the fact that the new agreement on the governance of primary schools allows Church of Ireland and Presbyterian schools to refuse places to children who are not of the same religion as the schools to which they have applied.
"If we are going to legislate for a system which excludes children from local schools on the basis of their religion, then it is hard to describe it in any terms other than sectarian," Senator O'Toole said.
Ms Alice Prendergast, president of the Teachers' Union of Ireland, said the decision to remove the veto was "probably useless" unless Section 37 of the new Employment Equality Bill was also deleted, which exempts schools' from certain anti discrimination measures if considered necessary to protect their ethos.
According to Ms Kathleen Lynch TD, of Democratic Left, who had opposed the exemption, an agreement has now been reached on its removal and the Minister for Education's decision was a "natural consequence" of this.
The decision to remove the religious veto over staff was welcomed by Mr Micheal Martin, the Fianna Fail spokesman on education, but he questioned why the veto proposal was included in the initial draft legislation.
A spokeswoman for the Catholic Primary School Managers Association said the association had not seen the revised Bill but would welcome the retention of the current situation.