The Irish Press of Monday, 30 June 1986 contained an item under the heading “Catholic Rule on Teachers Stays”. In the course of this report by Pat Holmes, The Irish Press education correspondent, remarks are attributed to Mr. Oliver Ryan, Chairman of the Catholic Primary School Managers' Association, to the effect that a meeting had been sought with his organisation by the Irish National Teachers' Organisation to discuss a guideline to which the INTO had overwhelmingly objected at their annual conference last Easter. The guidelines that were referred to were: (1) that teachers being appointed should be “practicing Catholics”, and (2) teachers should be “committed to handing on the faith”. Mr. Ryan is quoted as going on to say that he felt that this issue was “part and parcel of the fabric of the Catholic school” and that this guideline “will not be withdrawn under any circumstance”.
The two events that have taken place since I last raised this matter in Seanad Éireann have, therefore, been the statement by the Catholic Primary School Managers' Association just recently and the annual conference of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation. I raised this matter on 11 December 1985 and on 5 June 1986 I raised a related issue regarding the patronage of schools. A number of issues that I have raised have not been satisfactorily answered and I want to return to them now.
Let me put the matter very simply. What is at stake is the constitutional right to teach, or to express and extend that right that, once one has met the criteria of professional training, competence and general suitability, one has the right to expect to be appointed to an assistant teachership position in the Irish national school system. On 11 December 1985 the present Minister's predecessor again and again in her speech reported in the Official Report columns 869 to 876 volume 110, drew a distinction between appointment and qualification. I quote her from column 872:
It is a condition of all whole time appointments in national schools that the teachers must be qualified in accordance with the rules and my Department will not approve appointments for the purposes of the payment of salary unless these rules are observed. The Senator may, therefore rest assured that my function as Minister in setting down minimum standards, is exercised to the full in respect of the appointment of teachers.
I accept that. I have no doubt whatever that the Minister was interested in the qualification of teachers. However, she went on to say:
The procedure for the appointment of teachers and the means of selecting qualified candidates for appointments to posts in national schools is, of course, an entirely different matter. Following consultations with the patrons, boards of management were established in national schools in 1975, to replace individual managers in the carrying out of the functions vested in local management. Among these functions is the appointment of teachers. I would point out to the Senator that parents are on boards of management and parent representatives are members of the Catholic Primary Managers' Association. There are two parents elected from the school to every board. There is a parents' association in almost every school. So there is a very definite and laid out role for parents in these functions.
What the Minister did not state on 11 December 1985 is that there were two to three times the number of nominees on the board who were representatives of the patron, nor did she point out that one of the nominees of the patron would in fact serve as chairperson of the board or that the parents' selection process having been exhausted, at that stage the patron's nominees would be appointed. That is the parents' involvement in relation to the running of the schools. It is not the matter that immediately concerns me, but I repeat my question which I asked again on 5 June 1986: where is the statutory justification for the patron's power? Where is the statutory justification for the patron's position in the national school system?
I have gone in search of this in all of the usual places — for example, in the document known as the Boards of Management of National Schools, Constitution of Boards and Rules of Procedure. That document gives a description of functions which the Minister allocates to patrons. It has no reference number, and pagination is not indicated. In the first page it states very clearly that the patron is the person or body of persons recognised as such by the Minister for Education. The patron may manage the school himself or may nominate a suitable person or body of persons to act as managers. Subject to the approval of the Minister the patron may at any time resume the direct management of the school or may nominate another manager.
This brings us circuitously to the point that is very much at issue which concerns the right to teach. I am leaving aside another right at the moment, a right which I thought existed but which I now believe is not effective, the right to be trained as a teacher if you are not a member of a denomination. In this country it is not possible to train to be a teacher if you are in that position, which makes its own comment on us.
In relation to the Department of Education's primary branch, the Minister in November 1984 issued an additional document which changed paragraph 23 of the basic document, RR154660, governing the management of national schools. An additional change was to lay out, as it does in pages 12 to 22, conditions for the appointments of teachers.
On the last occasion, I welcomed this from the then Minister for Education, Deputy Hussey. It was a genuine attempt to eliminate sexism from the process of interviewing for appointments to posts, but there is a problem. If all this is just addressed to the question of who is qualified, what factors influence the appointment of a teacher? We are now facing conflict which is inevitable both in terms of the organised teaching profession and also of a constitutional kind as to which set of criteria will be implemented. It will be possible for a teacher, for example, to go through the process of qualification but yet know that although all the qualifications have been met that is not a criterion for appointment. The Minister may say he will ensure that nobody unqualified will be appointed but what about the 51 rules of the Catholic Primary School Managers' Association which their chairman said are not matters for negotiation.
What is the teacher to say at the interview if asked if he or she is a practising Catholic or committed to handing on the faith? Here instantly, I will list an issue which is illegal and unconstitutional. There is a reference in the question of the running of schools to the teaching of religion but there is no reference to the faith. There are many people who believe that they can teach religion comparatively, teach it with respect as it should be taught, but it is a different question altogether to be asked if you are handing on the faith, and what faith are you speaking of? How do people know if you are a practising Catholic? Is it to be measured? I will not repeat myself. My views are clear from my remarks of 11 December 1985. I asked if it was to be in terms of behavioural practice? Is it to be in terms of religiosity? If you saw a statue moving would it qualify for 15 years non attendance — without being too offensive?
The next question that arises is in relation to what happens when the school numbers decrease and a teacher becomes redundant. The redundant teacher, as the Minister acknowledged on 11 December 1985, can go onto a panel of qualified people but would have to go before an interview board and answer this question in the affirmative so you could find yourself, practising, lapsing and practising as the numbers went down only to lapse again if the numbers went down in the new school and so on. It is an absolute absurdity and it would be absurd if it were not so offensive to a profession. It also clearly indicates — I am used to the phrase — that we do not have State primary education which is what we pay our taxes to sustain. We pay teachers' salaries, light, heating and so on, but we have accorded to some form of ancient ground landlords in relation to the schools, the right to establish what is and can be seen from all of this as sectarian education and I oppose it.
People wonder what can be done. There is a concession which I liked when I was looking through this. I have no great quibble with the two rules quoted by Deputy Hussey when she was Minister. Rule 68 on page 38 of the rules of the national schools under the Department of Education says that of all the parts of school curriculum religious instruction is by far the most important as its subject matter. God's honour and service include the proper use of all man's faculties. One could go on. I need not quibble with this. But this has been taken a step further and it has now been suggested that in interviews the Catholic Primary School Managers' Association will have nominees who can ask whether you are a practising Catholic and if you are committed to handing on the faith with all the other attendant questions. People have been asked what form of family planning they practice, what other attitudes they have and so on. This is very wrong, it has to end and we must grasp the nettle. If people want denominational education let them have it, but those of us who are paying for a State primary system, for the training of teachers, and who want to see those teachers carry out their duties with professional competence equally have some rights.
We faced issues like this a very long time ago. I refer to the case of Miss Dunbar Harrison in Mayo who was appointed by the Local Appointments Commission as a librarian. When she had opted to work in Mayo she was told that 24 out of the 26 members of the library committee would not have her. She was a Protestant and a Trinity graduate. Later someone said that it would be all right if she was handing out books but that she might recommend a book to somebody and no less a person than Mr. de Valera suggested that Mayo people were entitled to have someone they wanted handing books out to children. I hoped we had come a long way since 1931. We are now in 1986 with questions like this being pointed out. Who are the people who advise boards of management and appointment boards, these vigilantes as I referred to them before? How will you satisfy them? Maybe you did not go to Church where they could see you? Maybe you went in the city in the evening when you should have gone in the morning under their vigilance, but maybe you will do something that is much worse.
You can sail into the interview and say, that you are practising Catholic, and committed to handing on the faith with all the assurance of cynicism and with all the damage that will cause to the teaching profession. If we qualify people and if we have criteria for qualifications, we must accept the responsibility of not allowing the criteria of professional competence, ability and overall suitability to be frustrated by any other form of questioning. I worry about this in circumstances where, for example, there will be vacancies, where teachers will have to apply for them and I am worried about the abuse of it by a kind of a spiritually prurient group of people who may say to someone who is a very spiritual person, who wants to teach science, who wants to teach comparative religion, that they are not practising in the way they mean practising. We are allowing the law and the administration of education to sink into the gutter when we agree to that. It is sectarianism straight and simple.
I have four children attending national schools, one going to one denomination and three going to another and I would like them to be taught by someone who has respect for science and comparative religion. I would respect that teacher a great deal more than someone who had to be intimidated into answering questions. I conclude by saying to the Minister — I repeated it to his Minister of State — where and when did the people for whom the Catholic Primary School Managers' Association claim to speak hand over their rights under Article 42 of the Constitution? I accept the Supreme Court distinction for the moment between the State providing for education and the State being the educator. Where and when did the parents of this State hand over to the Catholic Primary School Managers' Association their rights to educate their children as they exist in Article 42 of the Constitution? Where did they give that group of people the right to put questions like this into the mouths of interviewers?
I am not a bit sorry that this is going on so late. I am only sorry more people cannot listen to it because I think it is an extremely important matter. It is a matter that will occur again and again. I feel it is a shocking indictment to know that for the children of this country not only can they not go to pluralist education but that they cannot even get into the classroom where they will not be taught by someone who has had to answer questions like this from an unrepresentative, undemocratic body. Who are these people, and what secret organisations of a Catholic kind are in their midst? As we know very well, we have both Opus Dei and the Knights of Columbanus. I object to these people sitting in judgement on qualified teachers that I and other parents want to teach our children.
