I call Deputy Coppinger. My apologies for that.

Can the Taoiseach tell the House when the Minister for Education and Skills will introduce the Bill on school patronage that he spoke about? He must agree that the expectation and demand among a growing number of people is for equality in education, and one would have thought that the priority of the Minister would be to outlaw discrimination against children on the basis of their religion. I wonder if the Taoiseach read Colette Browne's article. I am not one for plugging the Irish Independent, but I do on this occasion. The headline states that children will pay the price for surrender on the baptism barrier. I ask the Taoiseach to re-examine that, because the Bill we are hearing about would lead to the segregation of children several times a week - at least once a day - for religious instruction. It has been well proven that this carries into the playground, where children cluster into groups with those of their own ethnic background. Is the Taoiseach going for the easy option in regard to this, the one he believes the Catholic Church will accept and that will not rock its boat? Is he aware that only two schools were divested by the Catholic Church since this entire process was mooted under the former Minister, Ruairí Quinn? It would seem there is no appetite on behalf of the Catholic Church to surrender control, but it is accepting this as the best situation it can get, and it seems to be well disposed to it. However, it has been pointed out by Atheist Ireland that the consequence of the Bill is that it could make the situation worse because some Catholic schools would become less Catholic-----

We cannot go into a debate on the potential of the Bill.

I am concluding, a Cheann Comhairle. Other schools will become more Catholic, but what we could see is schools not being available to those who have no faith. I ask the Taoiseach to reconsider going down this road and allow for the fact that there is now huge diversity in this country. He should move with the times.

On the same issue, with regard to the priority legislation listed for publication this session, there is the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill, which is about the provisions regarding the enrolment of pupils in schools and a requirement for schools to operate enrolment policies in a transparent fashion. The pre-legislative scrutiny took place in March 2014, but from the conversations and interviews given by the Minister in public, it sounds as though this is potentially entirely new legislation.

Let us hear from the Taoiseach.

Only last week we were given the list of legislation so will the Taoiseach clarify exactly what is happening? It is a really important area as it concerns the type of access that children, including those who may not have been baptised and whose parents do not profess a particular religious faith, will have, if any, to the local school system.

This divestment of patronage in schools was initiated by a former Minister for Education and Skills, former Deputy Ruairí Quinn. The Archbishop of Dublin pointed out that the Catholic Church has too many schools and wishes to divest numbers of these to other patrons, whether that was Educate Together or whatever. That process did not measure up to the targets that the Minister had in mind because of practical difficulties and circumstances in different places around the country.

It is perfectly in order for any patron to express the wish to have its ethos in its own school. It is important to note that is the issue here. The basic aim of the Government is to use economic success to create a fair and compassionate society, and education is involved as one of the areas in that regard. The Government is anxious to provide more choice for parents and we are determined to make it easier for parents, particularly parents whose children are not Catholic, to enrol their children in multidenominational schools where they wish to do so. That is why the programme for Government commits to reaching 400 non-denominational and multidenominational schools by 2030. That is an ambitious target and it represents more than a tripling of the current rate of transfer of Catholic schools to multidenominational patrons.

The Minister, Deputy Bruton, has articulated a strategy for how he plans to deliver on that and he wants to implement it. Providing additional multidenominational schools is the quickest and most straightforward way of dealing with the very complex issue of providing choice for parents. It is important to note that this issue only arises in respect of 20% of schools that are oversubscribed.

It does not.

We have chosen to go down the road of dealing with this by providing more multidenominational schools. For the information of Deputy Coppinger, we are advised that there would potentially be very significant constitutional issues in terms of the rights of religious expression in attempting to require through legislation that a Catholic school would admit a non-Catholic ahead of a Catholic. Therefore, rather than risk lengthy legal challenges in the courts and a potential referendum, adding multidenominational schools would be a much easier way to deal with this right of choice for parents.

There is nothing against that in the Constitution.

The Deputy will have to find another way to address the issue.

The Minister, Deputy Bruton, will discuss this with the Oireachtas committee. The Bill introduced by the former Minister, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, some time ago did not deal with this issue. It is an element that the Minister, Deputy Bruton, would be quite happy to discuss with the Oireachtas committee.

On a point of order-----

There is no point of order on the Order of Business.

You allowed the Taoiseach say something completely wrong last week and he did not have to correct it.

The Deputy must find another way of addressing the matter. Perhaps you could raise it on the Adjournment.