THE Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin Dr John Neill has accused the Government of threatening the future of Protestant schools by imposing the same cuts on them as those hitting other fee-paying schools.More than 20 Protestant second-level schools are among the 80-plus fee-paying schools hit with harder cuts to teacher numbers than those imposed on the other 650 second-level schools when they reopened last month, and they are also losing funding for caretaker and secretarial staff.
But the Protestant education community has claimed they are being treated unfairly as most of their second-level schools cater for students from a wide geographical catchment because there are no schools nearby to allow them to avail of their constitutional right to be educated in accordance with their religious ethos.
Addressing the Dublin and Glendalough Diocesan Synods yesterday, Dr Neill accused the Department of Education of mounting a determined effort to strike at the sector.
"It is my distinct impression that the reclassification of the Protestant schools was not driven by financial considerations. It was driven by what amounts to a very determined and doctrinaire effort within the department to strike at a sector which some officials totally failed to understand," he said.
Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe’s spokesman said last night that the grant of €6.5 million shared by the Protestant schools for poorer students was being kept in place. He told the Dáil he was still to hear from Protestant church leaders asked last November to make proposals on how the department might target funding at rural Protestant schools.
Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes told Mr O’Keeffe his "utterly offensive" handling of the issue had put him on a collision course with the Protestant community.
Dr Neill said many Protestant schools were being lumped together with those where parents send their children to a private fee-paying school despite free schools being available in their own tradition and in their own locality.
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