Bishops welcome new schools divestment plan

The Bishops’ Council for Education has offered a welcome for Minister Richard Bruton’s words on religious education in Catholic schools and his proposals for a consultative process on any future divestment of schools.

In a statement on behalf of the Council, its chair, Bishop Brendan Kelly said “The Council for Education will study these proposals and, in the meantime, will continue to engage with Minister Bruton, his departmental officials and with the Education and Training Boards.”

Endorsement

In an endorsement for Community National Schools on January 27, Minister Bruton said that the value of such institutions lay in their accommodating different faith traditions, “not putting them outside the door, but bringing them in as something to be valued and recognised, but in an inclusive setting”. This he added, allows parents “who want faith instruction, whatever their faith, to have an opportunity to do that while the programme that integrates everyone runs right through the year.”

Meanwhile, last Monday saw the unveiling of the Government’s plan on future divestment.

Under the new two-stage plan, Education and Training Boards will work to identify areas where there is likely to be demand from families for diversity in schooling and, where such demand is demonstrated, a process will be set in train to realise this through divestment of at least one school.

On this latter stage, the Minister said, “the existing landowner, in cooperation with the local school community, will decide what multi-denominational patron to transfer to. The transfer will be by way of a live school transfer, with existing staff remaining in place, where this is the wish of the parties involved. In most cases the new patron will lease the building from the landowner.” He added: “I believe that we should acknowledge the role of religious organisations in providing a system of national education for nearly two centuries. I also believe that a desire on behalf of many parents to have their children educated within their faith is welcome and should be respected.”

Criticism

The plan faced immediate criticism from Fianna Fáil’s spokesperson on Education Thomas Byrne TD who said it appeared to be “a stale relaunch” of the previous divestment programme.

“The divestment programme under the previous Fine Gael Government ended up being an absolute disaster,” Deputy Byrne said. “It riled many local communities and delivered few multi-denominational schools, despite high demand for such schools.”