A Labour TD who backed a motion at his party’s conference which called for Catholic civil
servants to be vetted to make sure they don’t show “inappropriate deference” to
the Church has backed away from the plan,
The Irish Catholic has reported.Deputy Aodhan O
Riordain also admitted that his initial support for the motion had “caused
embarassment and discomfort to my Labour Party colleagues”. The proposal to vet
Catholics, he acknowledged, had “caused understandable offence”.

Deputy Aodhán O
Riordain said he didn’t support the proposal, which said that civil servants “who feel they are ‘Catholic first and
Irish second’ should seek promotion in other organs of the State” than the Department of Education.

The proposal, recommendation 15 of a document called the ‘Clontarf Report’ which attacks denominational
schools, says: “All senior officials in state bodies which are likely to have to deal with the Catholic Church should be screened to ensure that they
will not show inappropriate deference to the Catholic Church. Those who feel they are ‘Catholic first and Irish second’ should seek promotion in other organs
of the State.”

Deputy O Riordain now says that recommendation 15  “escaped my notice”.

“I do not support or endorse this recommendation in any way,” he said.

The motion will not now be debated in its current form at the Labour Party conference in April, and Deputy O Riordan said at the weekend that the controversial “screening” proposal
“will not appear in any motion at the national Labour conference in April”.

The Clontarf Report,
called ‘Illegal Religious Discrimination in National Schools in Ireland’ also says that allowing denominational schools to admit children of their own faith first, is illegal. Report author and party activist John Suttle claims enrolment policies based on religion were never allowed under the law.

However, the Equal
Status Act explicitly permits denominational schools to admit those of their own faith first.

Labour TD, Aodhan
O’Riordain for Dublin North Central, also told The Irish Catholic recently that he believes “religious ethos has no place in the education sector of a modern republic”.

Meanwhile, another
Labour TD has suggested that his party was in danger of creating the perception that it was “following a pseudo liberal agenda”.

Colm Keaveney TD, who
represents Galway East, told the Irish Catholic that he was “noticing a trend away from our traditional values based on protecting and representing working and jobless people and towards a perception that we are following a pseudo liberal agenda.”

He said that he
represented a constituency “where many people rely on pastoral support and Catholic organisations such the St Vincent de Paul, organisations helping families through poverty, grief addiction and all the other problems that life throws up.

“This important role
within our society needs to be recognised and I personally applaud their contribution,” Mr Keaveney said.