Vol. 254 No. 6
asked the Minister for Education if he is aware of the statement of the executive committee of the Vocational Teachers Organisation concerning the proposals relating to community schools; and, if so, if he intends to amend the proposals to meet the views of the teachers concerned.
18.
asked the Minister for Education if he is aware of the statement made by the Church of Ireland Diocesan Synod in Clones, County Monaghan on 29th May 1971 that it viewed with dismay the proposals of his Department to hand over control of both vocational and post-primary education in the community schools to the authorities of one denomination; and if he will, in the light of such views, revise the current proposals.
19.
asked the Minister for Education whether, in the light of reactions to his community schools proposal, he will reconsider his proposals to vest these schools in trustees appointed by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy; and if he will make provision (a) for selection by parents of their representatives on management boards, (b) for teacher representation on such boards and (c) for the representation of secondary and vocational school interests, on the basis appropriate to their relative importance in each locality.
20.
asked the Minister for Education if he is aware that the annual congress of the Irish Vocational Education Association on 1st June, 1971 unanimously rejected his proposals on the community schools; if he has noted their objections to his proposals; and if he intends to amend his proposals in the light of these and other objections to them.
With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 17, 18, 19 and 20 together. In making educational provision I must deal with factual not theoretical situations. As I have pointed out in the House on numerous occasions I had to deal with the problem where in a number of smaller rural towns adequate provision could be made for the post-primary education of all the pupils only by building one school sufficiently large to provide a curriculum which would be broad enough to cater for varying degrees of aptitude and ability. This would mean in effect in most of the areas concerned the discontinuing of three small existing schools and providing equitably for the interests which they represented. Before arriving at any final proposals as to how one large community school might be established and managed I had before me the views of various bodies and gave the fullest consideration to these views. I am satisfied that my proposals are those best calculated to provide a practical solution for the problem involved.
I would have felt that the figures which I gave the House on 27th May would once and for all have stifled the efforts to introduce sectarianism into this matter. I can only once more deplore these efforts.
In applying the concept of community schools I could not agree that different patterns should be worked out in relation to different areas as appears to be envisaged in Question No. 19. It will be a matter for the parents at the various local meetings to make known their views as to how their representatives for nomination to the board of management might be selected.
The Minister says that views were available to him from all sources. How can the Minister reconcile that statement with the fact that the Protestant minority have said that they have only recently received the document and have not yet had an opportunity of commenting on the proposals?
I have pointed out before, and I will have to do so again, that I met members of the Protestant community on many occasions——
On this proposal?
I have to deal with the factual situation, which does not appear to have any recognition from the Opposition benches. The Deputies on those benches are much more inclined to build up a theoretical situation which appears very fanciful but which, in practice, will not work. I met the representatives of the Protestant community on many occasions and they made it clear to me that they were anxious to have their children educated in schools conducted by members of their own faith. This happened over a very considerable period and it was obvious to me that in framing these proposals the thing to do was to continue to help the Protestant minority in order to enable them to send their children to schools which were conducted by people of their own faith. This has been the policy of this Government and it will continue to be our policy.
Is the Minister aware that many Protestants favour multidenominational education and that it is not correct to say that all Protestants want their children to be educated in purely Protestant schools? The proposals were not submitted to the Protestant school authorities until recently and the replies were not received by the Minister before he made his announcement. The Minister has not yet received a response from these authorities with regard to their views on these proposals.
The members of the Protestant community, no less than the members of the Catholic community, have made it clear to me and to my predecessors on many occasions that they wish to have their children educated in schools conducted by members of their own faith. Surely the Deputy does not expect to be told that I have met all the Protestants and all the Catholics in the country. I have to rely on the views expressed by representatives of the various sectors. I have given my reasons for acting in the way I did, and it appears to me that what members of the Opposition would like to do is to hang some sort of sectarian label on me, but that will not work.
I still repeat what I said before and that is that the Minister is acting in a sectarian manner. Would the Minister agree now when his current proposals which are in issue have been rejected unanimously, as stated in Question No. 18, by the Church of Ireland Diocesan Synod in Clones, County Monaghan, that it is extremely unlikely that the Board of Education of the Church of Ireland will find them less unpalatable? These proposals have been opposed by both Opposition parties and by the executive committee and many branches of the Vocational Teachers Organisation, by an overwhelming majority. In fact, all the chief executive officers in this country who have spoken on the proposals have rejected them. May I ask the Minister in the light of this overwhelming repudiation and abhorrence of what is now contained in the proposals, why he still obdurately continues to refuse to amend the proposals and to bring forward more balanced ones which would not involve the sell-out of the vocational schools in the country and the introduction of an entirely sectarian community school concept? I implore the Minister to re-examine his decisions.
In case Deputy Desmond is under any illusion in relation to my remarks last night that I felt hurt by the fact that sectarian allegations were made against me, and lest he felt that I was referring to his remarks in the House, I want to disillusion him immediately. I treat his kind of remarks with contempt. I had discussions with many groups in relation to these proposals. As I explained on many occasions very diverse opinions were expressed. Some of the opinions were completely opposed to one another. It was obvious to me that in the long run it would be necessary for me to put forward my own proposals based on all the information that was available to me—and this was a large amount of information. This is what I have done. I now propose to put my proposals to the most important element in our educational system, that is, young people and the parents acting for such young people. I now propose to commence in a few areas consultation with the parents of the young people who will be attending these post-primary schools and who will be very much more interested in having a worthwhile education provided for their children than they will be interested in political or any other sort of controversy. We will ascertain what are their views.
Would the Minister say whether it is not correct that, in sending these proposals to the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and in consulting with them and obtaining their views, he did not get the views of the Protestant Hierarchy or Protestant school authorities on these proposals? Would he explain what he means by saying that the approach of getting the views of one religion only before deciding to hand over the vocational schools to the Hierarchy of that religion is not sectarian?
I am not handing over the vocational schools to the Hierarchy.
He is selling them.
What did happen was—I hardly need to repeat it—that in the case of one particular town I was asked what I meant in relation to community schools and I gave this information which some time later appeared in one of the national newspapers. This created an emotional situation for which, of course, I am not responsible. I gave figures in the House recently to indicate the numbers who would be attending these community schools if we had them in the different areas and also the numbers from the Protestant community who might be attending them. This was one factor that had to be taken into consideration, but by far the most important factor was that I knew from my own experience in dealing with the Protestant community over a period of time that they were anxious to have their children educated in schools conducted by members of their own faith.
Exclusively?
Of course this attitude was very understandable because we must remember that the Protestant community comprise only 5 per cent of the population here. I sympathise very much with the desire of the Protestant community in this matter. Since I have held ministerial office I have helped them in many ways to achieve various things which I could not make available to Catholics. I believed I was right in so doing. This has always been the policy of the Government here and will continue to be their policy as long as I am Minister.
Since I put a question down on this, perhaps I could ask a question on a slightly broader aspect of this problem. Not wishing to shift the subject from the issue of denominationalism on which I concur fully with Deputies Desmond and FitzGerald, may I put it to the Minister, before asking my own supplementary, that this is a very serious issue and that everybody thinks so except, apparently, the Minister. To say that he treats Deputy Desmond's views with contempt is not an adequate answer from a Minister of State in this House to a serious question.
Would the Deputy come to the question?
Arising from the Minister's specific reply, when he spoke of dealing with factual and not theoretical situations and when he spoke of providing equitably for all the interests involved, can he say here and now whether in any area his proposals provide equitably for the interests involved either at this time or in the future?
Yes.
Secondly, will the Minister state if, despite the massive volume of unanimous opposition to his scheme, opposition that is not confined to Deputy Desmond or to any other Deputy, he stands over what he apparently said in Tralee last night that the four and two system stands and he will not budge?
I have explained on a number of occasions why I decided on this particular four and two system. Having had to bear in mind all the practical considerations, I believe this was the best solution. I have already said here that if I got a large sheet of blank paper and a pencil I could jot down what might appear to be an ideal solution to this particular problem. However, the facts are that this sort of thing cannot be done. One must take into account all the practical considerations and, having done so, make up one's mind. That is what I did. I emphasise again that I propose to hold public meetings in a few areas and to give the parents of the young people, who are more important than the Minister, more important than the Hierarchy or more important than anybody else in the educational system, the opportunity of making known their views.
Dr. FitzGerald rose.
I am calling Question No. 21. This matter is developing into a debate.
So it should.
This is to the disgrace of the Chair. May I point out that for the past two weeks we have attempted to raise those questions on the Adjournment of the House but they were ruled out of order. Now we are not being allowed to ask supplementaries.
This is not a matter for Question Time.
Why not?
The Minister mentioned to me some time ago that the document issued was a working document. Can he confirm that that is still the position?
The original document was a working document.
Is that still the position?
The position is that I have made decisions as a result of consultations I have had in relation to this working document.
Would the Minister not agree——
I am calling Question No. 21.
——if, when he gets their views on this document, their views do not coincide with the views he thought they held, to withdraw the scheme or modify it?
I have no doubt as to what the views were in relation to the desire of the Protestant community to have their children educated in their own schools.
Would the Minister say——
Would Deputy FitzGerald allow Questions to continue? He cannot monopolise Question Time.
If I ask permission to raise this on the Adjournment, will it be granted and, if not, why not?
I will consider it carefully.
That is a disgraceful reply.
Are Fine Gael against denominational schools? The people would like to know that. Also, where do the Labour Party stand?
Order.
Will the Minister agree with me that the parents of Protestant children now attending vocational or secondary schools that are not exclusively Protestant schools are perfectly happy with the present proposals for community schools? These are the people involved. We know they are and any attempt by the Opposition to bring sectarianism into this is to be deplored. Would the Minister not agree also that the Opposition questions up to now have ignored completely the educational good of the children and indicate that they are prepared to prostitute the children for political reasons?
I will answer that by saying that what I have found very peculiar about this whole discussion is that systems, structures, ideologies and all other sorts of things seem to be much more important to the Opposition than the education of the children. So far as I am concerned I will see to it that the children in the small towns of Ireland get an equal opportunity with those in the big town or city in the country.
