The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell has defended the Church’s role in the boards of management of State-funded schools, saying a true plurality of patronage in education “needs to ensure parental choice while enabling all patrons, including Catholic patrons, to be true to their own ethos and characteristic spirit”.

A great strength of faith-based schools “has been their rootedness in local communities. Those who do not share our faith come to our schools because they know that at their heart there is the acceptance of values motivated by our faith – values that present a specific vision or view of human life. Furthermore, inter-religious and inter-belief dialogue is at the heart of the Catholic school enterprise,” he said.

The Catholic school provided “academically excellent education; it provides faith-based formation that allows each student to develop a moral foundation on which to stand for the rest their lives and, it gives a vision and hope beyond the limits of value-free education,” he said.