Social Democrat leaders Catherine Murphy (left) and Róisín Shortall on the ‘plinth’ this afternoon.
Leinster House, Dublin 2
Yesterday, Minister for Education Richard Bruton announced his plans to remove the baptism barrier in Irish schools.
But that’s not enough for the Soc Dems.
Not by a long ‘chalk’.
Co-leader Róisín Shortall said:
“We need to take religion out of the school day entirely. I will be tabling an amendment to the Education (School Admissions) Bill 2016 today to do just that.
Education Minister Richard Bruton’s proposals for divestment are piecemeal and seem like yet another long fingering exercise.
The Citizens’ Assembly model proved to be incredibly valuable in dealing with the issue of how to legislate for access to abortion in Ireland….
…The overwhelming public support for repealing the Eighth Amendment reflects a changed mood in the country.
People are moving towards a sense of civic ethics and increasingly they want to see the separation of the church and state in other aspects of public services, particularly our education system where 90 per cent of primary schools are under the patronage of the Church.
It would be very appropriate and timely for the government to task a Citizens’ Assembly to examine the issue and bring forward recommendations to the Oireachtas.”
GETOUTOFMYCLASSSYESYOUTOOMURPHY
*flings duster*
Rollingnews
yeessssssssss. Keep religion in church and out of education.
And no funding given to religions who wish to run schools.
Let them do it themselves if they want without govt funding.
aye although that’s how you end up with fundamentalist schools, lack of government oversight. but one thing at a time eh!
Independent schools should have govt. oversight, even if there’s no funding.
Fixed now :)
You want to corrupt your spawn with a sky god? Grand. Setup Sunday schools. And let my tax money and children’s time go into getting them a job in the real world. Time for indoctrination to end. Tax funded indoctrination. That dead language will be next.
That “dead language” is thriving thank you very much.
Education is not job training.
It’s not an option. It should be an option. It’s forced and hated by many. That’s not a great way to have an inclusive society. When a lot of people hate the “native” language and they themselves are a native. That can’t be the sign of a healthy nation.
But let’s deal with the sky god nonsense first.
A mere 20,000 daily Irish speakers, after almost 100 years of it being mandatory for every person in the state to spend 12 years learning? “thriving”? Its on its deathbed, despite it having been forced on generations of school children.
Like religion, it should be optional. Let people who have an interest in the language learn it. Let others use the school time for something useful like science, or French/Spanish/Chinese.
Here they come, the people who enjoyed the Gaeltacht. Token Irish purveyors.
Make it optional and we will see the numbers soar…
The issue with daily speakers is, as always, opportunity. Pop up Gaeltachts are helping but it’s a small scattered community that are speaking Irish in public on a daily basis.
Education is not about useful.
Or just teach it well, teach it by speaking it.
There’s plenty of interest in the language – look at the growth in Gaelscoileanna. The problem is that the standard way of teaching it is crap, not that people aren’t interested.
The Citizens’ Assembly model proved to be incredibly valuable in dealing with the issue of how to legislate for access to abortion in Ireland….
The delicious irony of the leader of the SD saying this.
Remember when the CA was tasked with the abortion question and the overwhelming feeling from the brain trust around these parts was ‘THIS IS ENDA KENNY SIMPLY PASSING THE BUCK HE HAS NO INTENTION OF DOING THIS ANOTHER WASTE OF TIME WORSE THAN HITLER’ etc.
“…proved to be…”
get excited much?
In fairness that’s what he had hoped for. Didn’t pan out that way.
Too true.
It wasn’t what he had hoped for. He knew that the only way a referendum could be called would be pending the outcome of a CA.
He was right. You were all wrong and apparently still are.
Remember you said that someone was “absurd” and an “idiot” when they thought the referendum might be a landslide and you sneered, in that annoying smug way that you do, that it will be in “the very low 50s, at the most”? I do. I remember that. Your are irrelevant.
Yes i remember calling the thought of a landslide absurd. I also remember admitting I was wrong.
I also remember saying that the CA was the only way to make the referendum happen and Kenny did the right thing by calling for it.
I am very willing to admit when I’m wrong. Unlike some of you Idiots.
No one expected a landslide, and most thought it wouldn’t happen…. hence the intensive campaigning. Rotide only voiced that, campaigners believed it would be close…. so what if he said it out loud. Give it a rest, NO ONE expected the result to be a “landslide”
You! You can really crawl back under Mount Irrelevant.
Ooooooooh cutting :)
You’re so edgy man…. pffft!
Actually the citizens assembly were waaaay more “liberal” than all mainstream parties on the abortion issue e.g. advocating abortion up to 24 weeks. And for what its worth Roisin Shortall was a vocal NO voter until after joining the SocDems but they were right about Kenny, he had long decided there no way this was going to happen under his term. When you look at the “landslide victory” results and voter turnout it absolutely should have been run earlier.
The Taoseach that was responsible for the Marriage Referendum and the one that basically set the ball rolling on the 8th referendum had decided ‘it was no way happening under his term’?
Tell us more Enda, you seem to have all the info.
Yes I remember the last few Taoiseachs publicly recorded opinions on controversial matters. Not my fault if you’re too young or just weren’t paying attention to know what those are.
just when i thought I couldn’t love catherine murphy any more
+1000
+10000
+ infinity no backs
I live in Kilcock. Have joined the soc. dem because of her. I will be going out canvassing for her next election.
Ina’s late to post. Hope they’re ok.
friend of mine has 2 daughters. refused to get them baptised. Struggle after struggle in school
Great work from the SocDems. If parents want their children to learn religion thats fine, but it should be a Sunday school situation. Any state funded schools should be secular.
this
always !
let’s make it happen
Yes the baptism barrier is an issue but so is single sex schools.
I grew up in cork 35 years ago and many of the schools were single sex. I now live in Dublin and it’s the same. I first shared a classroom with girls when I was 17, I don’t want that to be the case for my sons. It should be part of some parties agenda. At the moment it looks like many of these schools will still be single sex when my grand children are going to them