Baptising children to gain entry to Catholic schools 'fundamentally disturbing', says Minister

Wed, 12 Aug, 2015 - 13:26

The Minister for Education has described the practice of non-practising Catholic parents baptising their children in order to secure places in Catholic-run schools as "fundamentally disturbing".

Speaking in Limerick this morning, Minister Jan O' Sullivan said she would continue to work with the stakeholders of school patrons over the issue of divestment of Catholic-run schools.

"I think there is something fundamentally disturbing about parents feeling that they have to get their child baptised in order to get (their child) into a school if they don't believe in what baptism is about," the Minister said.

"There are many very committed people who do believe in what baptism is about.

"But, the idea that you get baptised simply to get a place in a school, I think, makes people uncomfortable.

"I do recognise that we have a legal situation and a constitutional situation whereby ethos is protected both in legislation and in the constitution; they are the parameters which I have to work as minister -- but I want to continue to make progress and I intend to focus on the divesting process in particular in the Autumn, and talk to the stakeholders and the patrons and see if there are ways in which we can assist the process and speed it up."

Minister O'Sullivan introduced the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2015 recently, which critics say gave further legal protection to the current 'Catholics First' system of admissions in the overwhelming majority of Irish schools.

It contained the provision: " a school to which section 7(3)(c) of the Act of 2000 applies, whose objective is to provide education in an environment which promotes certain religious values, the admission statement of the school shall include a statement that the school does not discriminate in relation to the admission of students where it admits persons of a particular religious denomination in preference to others or it refuses to admit as a student a person who is not of that denomination and, in the case of a refusal, it is proved that the refusal is essential to maintain the ethos of the school."

The Humanist Association of Ireland recently launched a campaign against what it regards as discrimination in State-funded schools.