Educate Together enrolment cuts
Senator Ó Ríordáin sought a debate on curtailments to five Educate Together schools' enrolments and on multidenominational education more generally. The discussion broadened to Northern Ireland politics and the need for moderate voices, with repeated interruptions before the chair ended the exchange.
When I raised yesterday the fact that five Educate Together schools have been told that their enrolment for September is being curtailed - each of them is being allowed to take in just 13 students - I was advised by the Leader to submit a Commencement debate request. I have done that and I hope the debate in question will take place tomorrow. I would like the Minister to come to this House to discuss the issue of multidenominational education in the context of three campaigns across the country that are looking for Educate Together status at second level. The campaign in Galway is being assisted by Councillor Niall McNelis and the campaign in south Kildare is being assisted by Councillor Mark Wall. The third campaign is in Dublin 13, which is my own part of the world. Parents feel very strongly about the continuum of education under this model of patronage. It would be good to have a debate in this House on multidenominational education in its totality, and Educate Together in particular.
Senator Feighan has made a solid suggestion in relation to the political impasse in Northern Ireland. Given that there are two vacant seats in this House, we could ask the Government to seek political agreement across all parties in the Oireachtas for the allocation of each of those seats, respectively to an individual from the unionist tradition and an individual from the nationalist tradition in Northern Ireland. I suggest that such a positive move would represent an imaginative response to the current impasse from this Chamber.
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I am of the view that it would attract good cross-party support in this House. What we have in the North is the failure of two extremes - extreme nationalism from the Sinn Féin side and extreme nationalism from the DUP - to come-----
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-----to a reasonable accommodation to get the Executive up and running again. I think Senator Feighan has made a reasonable suggestion. The voices of extremes are not doing the business. The people are being let down.
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Is it extreme to believe in marriage equality? Is that an extreme position?
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Voices from the mainstream of Northern Irish society should be facilitated in this House, as they were in the past when people like Gordon Wilson were Members of the Seanad.
This is a viable suggestion and is worthy of consideration and support from across these Houses. I will say this much: it is remarkable that when one makes a reasonable proposition about moderate voices that want to advance-----
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I cannot hear what the Senator is saying. There are other discussions going on in the Chamber.
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It is remarkable that when someone in this House makes-----
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-----a suggestion about having moderate voices that are progressive and want to advance the cause of the people of Northern Ireland, one gets shouted at by one of the extreme nationalist voices in this House.