A motion calling for the repeal of the admissions policy of religious schools has been unanimously passed at the Labour party conference.
Denominational schools are currently allowed to admit pupils on the basis of their religion but the motion describes this as “religious discrimination” and
wants it brought to an end.
The motion “calls on all Boards of Management, the Department of Education and Skills, and all Patron bodies to remove religious discrimination from the Admissions policies for all National Schools”, and “on The Equality Authority to rigorously enforce the provisions of the Equal Status Act in relation to religious discrimination on admission to National Schools.”
The motion claims that national schools are not allowed to ‘discriminate’ on the basis of religion.
Currently the Equal Status Act accepts that it is not discrimination if a primary or post-primary school established to promote religion “admits persons of a particular religious denomination in preference to others”.
In Britain attempts by the Labour Government to force religious schools to accept compulsory quotas of children from other faiths was fiercely resisted by the Church of England and the Catholic Church on the grounds that their schools were established specifically to cater for children of their own faith.
They said it would be an attack on their essential purpose if they no longer had this freedom.
However, the British Government also cooperated with the main religions to produce a document called ‘Faith in the System’ that acknowledged the role of religious schools in encouraging social integration.
An official Department of Education study two years ago acknowledged that Catholic primary schools in Ireland do more than their fair share in terms of accepting pupils from both immigrant and Traveller backgrounds.
Meanwhile Labour Education spokesman, Ruairi Quinn (pictured), called on the 18 religious congregations that ran most of the Ireland residential institutions that were investigated by the Ryan Commission to hand over their schools to the State by way of paying their share of the compensation scheme for abuse victims.
