Leading Catholic commentator, Maria Steen, has said Catholic parents have a right “to expect that their children should be entitled to express their views freely in school without being bullied, especially when those views correspond to the very ethos the school is supposed to promote.”

She made the remarks in this week’s Irish Catholic.

She cited an academic from DCU’s Anti-Bullying Centre who told an Oireachtas Committee in 2021 that students who were practising Catholics were singled out for bullying more than their non-religious peers.

She added that while bullying involves harassing, intimidating, or abusing someone, there is a subtler form which is institutional.

“The Department’s undermining of Catholic values, ethos and the practising of the faith leads to a situation in which it becomes easier to dismiss and deride Catholic children and their parents. Both the State and the Church should make provision for the education of Catholic children in accordance with their parents’ wishes and their religious beliefs,” she said.