THE CIRCUMSTANCE of Protestant schools in the Republic, in particular at secondary level, has been described as “quite bleak, and deeply frustrating” at the Church of Ireland General Synod which continues today at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin.The Archdeacon of Cork, Robin Bantry White, said education services which were available as a right to the rest of the population “are denied to parents, students and staff in our schools”.
He said the decision by former minister for education Batt O’Keeffe “to realign our schools out of the free scheme is continuing to cause hardship and suffering to the students in our schools and their parents”.
A direct consequence was “the loss of IT support grants, school book grants and secretarial and administrative grants”, to Protestant schools in the Republic.
He noted that “the former minister worried about the legality of the perceived unequal way that the Protestant schools were treated. But did he consider the inequality that already exists, and which is exacerbated by the change he has made?”
The archdeacon said the issue “has been seen through the misleading focus of the seemingly wealthy south Dublin suburbs. We have persistently argued the case of the rural secondary schools, and of less than wealthy parents everywhere, for whom the system was designed in the 1960s.”
He also spoke of Protestant foreboding on reading the McCarthy report which recommended closure of smaller national schools. “This would have taken Church of Ireland schools out of the reach of thousands of our children into the future,” he said.
It was no exaggeration, he said, “to say that for many Protestant secondary schools, 2010 and 2011 will mark a crossroads where tough decisions will have to be made about the way they will provide secondary education”.
He also said it was shocking that the delay in compulsory Garda vetting, where child protection was concerned, had risen “from an unacceptable eight weeks last year to a disgraceful 16 weeks”.
Adrian Oughton, warden at the Church of Ireland Wilson’s Hospital secondary school at Multyfarnham, Co Westmeath, recalled a phrase used by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan in a recent Dáil debate on ministerial pensions. Mr Lenihan had spoken of “disproportionate discrimination”, Mr Oughton said, arguing that this was what Protestant schools were now suffering.
He hoped the new Minister for Education Mary Coughlan would reverse the O’Keeffe decision “as a gesture of goodwill”.
Where the provision of books to Protestant children was concerned, for instance, the cost involved was €60,000, or “about two months of a bank executive’s pension”.
SIC: IT