Religion and Engaging with the Teacher

You need to learn some tolerance and then learn how to live and let live. You don't get to impose your beliefs or views onto anyone else. You are free to have your own beliefs (atheism?) and to follow them. That's fine with me. If you want to convert to Islam tomorrow then that is fine with me. Neither the State, nor anyone else, should try to forcibly convert you to Islam. Nor, after you are voluntarily converted, should it try to forcibly convert you to atheism.

If, after converting to Islam you want to set up community groups, then you should get the same State support as any other group and under the same conditions. That's a little concept called equality.

If you decide to set up a local school with an Islamic ethos, then that is perfectly fine and once it is certified by the Department of Education and meets the standard criteria, you should get the same funding as anyone else. If, after you have done a load of work setting up and building a fabulous school, the local scrounging anti-Muslim bigot can also enroll his child in the school. The school cannot refuse the child as that is a condition of the Department in supplying teachers. But that bigot doesn't have the right to burst in on day one and decide that his child is considering themselves a member of the Jedi religion and that the school must immediately be turned over to follow Jedi principles. If the bigot is against schools with an Islamic ethos, then he has the choice to send his child elsewhere. He can't force and choose his way into a scenario and then claim that that scenario is imposed upon him.

If you want to be a hypocrite and send your children to schools that are funded and supported by other members of a community while you sit up on their backs doing a "take take take" kind of thing, then that is on you. You can blame all your own life choices and decisions on the big bad world if you want. Helplessness is an imagined state.

The monopoly guff falls flat on its arse in the face of the fact that there are more non-Catholic secondary schools that Catholic ones. There are about 160 non-Catholic primary schools for you to choose from too. If they won't let you attend then you will have to take that up with them.

There are also no rules or restrictions preventing you from creating your own school. You can set it up and get it running as an independent school and retain ownership in a local board of trustees or you can hand it over to the private limited company - "Educate Together Ltd." - if you so wish. There are no rules preventing you from doing so. Now, if you send the Department an email saying "I hate Catholics and I was reading and writing some rants on boards.ie or facebook about it and I decided you have to build a new school right beside my house" then they might not give you much time. If you turn up with a plan, and a premises, and a governance structe with evidence of community support in place, then they will listen to you. You can't just whinge, and keep whinging, until someone else does the work for you.

If a person loves ice hockey and they are stuck in Ireland surrounded by GAA pitches, they don't have the right to force the GAA to build ice hockey facilities and hand them over to the the "Irish Ice Hockey Association" just because most people are interested in GAA. If you don't want your child to attend a Catholic school then send them to a different school (or home school is also an option). Principles seem to go out the window though very easily as soon as money or effort is involved.

@[Deleted User] Yes ETs make up a large proportion of recently built schools. But they're still a very small proportion of schools as a whole, and if you don't live in an area with enough population growth to allow a new school to be built, you're screwed.

Again, the pure Trumpian tactic of telling others to show tolerance to your ethos based firmly around intolerance of other views, other religions. If the vaguest hint of tolerance was baked into the operating model of catholic schools, most of this would be unnecessary, but it's not.

You seem to be about 30-40 years out of date on your description of how Dept Education works. It doesn't matter what money or land you bring to Dept Education. They assign new schools based on demographic needs, not based on who's run the best cake sale.

And more irrelevant analogies here. GAA pitches aren't built with public funds and staffed with coaches paid out of public funds. It's a bit different.

I wonder if we could pull together a list of all the things that DT expects parents to do, as punishments for their heinous thoughtcrime of not wanting their kids to be indoctrinated by someone else's religion when they're at school. Apparently they should;

• drive to the other side of the city or county to attend school
• move house to attend school
• keep their heads down, say their prayers, join in the the nativity to attend school
• start off a 20 year project to fundraise and buy land so that their five year old can attend school

All because DT can't bear the prospect of a publicly funded school having to treat all children equally, and be respectful to students of all religions and none.

Most ETB schools have an explicit Catholic ethos, despite being fully owned by a State body. So your comment that "there are more non-Catholic secondary schools than Catholic ones" is yet another falsehood.

Sorry to have to pull you up on that again but you are wrong, again. Check the stats if you like. unless you are doing something completely perverted like including any school that allows a Catholic student to attend as a "Catholic School"

Any update on that law that prevents new schools from being built? .................(Didn't think so but will give you another chance)

The liars and deniers won't acknowledge the fact that it's NOT open to anyone to set up a school - well, not unless they're a multi-millionaire. Dept of Education approval and funding is essential for everyone else, and they are VERY reluctant to approve a non-religious school. They will literally exhaust every other possible option. Dept of Education is stuffed full of religious conservatives pursuiing their own agenda, ask anyone involved in the ET or other non-religious school movements.

"90% of schools in Ireland are religious" - it's actually worse than that, Renko. 90% are catholic, about half of the rest are Church of Ireland, ETs and minority religions make up the rest.

It actually IS up to anyone who wants to, to establish a school. The difficulty is in being recognised by the DES, which is the only way they would receive funding from the State, and that applies to any school, regardless of it’s ethos, religious or otherwise. There are religious and non-religious schools I’m aware of which do not receive funding from the State, they are entirely funded by their Church or by the parents or by donations from the public.

As for whether or not the DOE is stuffed with religious conservatives, there wouldn’t be much point in asking people who are biased, as they’re only going to confirm your suspicions. The current education system isn’t just failing parents on the basis of religious affiliation or none -

What exactly are the "advantages" of a catholic education? A free guilt trip? Why are we allowing a child raping church to control schools they don't even pay for?

There aren’t any advantages or disadvantages of one form of education over another. It’s why there is no real demand for change in the current education system. It isn’t just that the DES doesn’t have it in the budget to overhaul the education system, it’s the fact that they can’t. They don’t have that power, and the State doesn’t have ability either. The only way to make a real difference in the percentages you quoted would be for the State to establish more State-run schools, and when the political will isn’t there to address rural development and housing in any meaningful way in spite of the fact that the population is only increasing, providing for education is even less of a priority than the first two.

As for why we are allowing a child raping church to control schools they don’t even pay for - people send their children to schools to be educated. Nobody sends their children to school to be raped. One has literally nothing to do with the other. The reason the Church controls the schools under their patronage is because the State doesn’t have the funds to establish enough new schools to provide for the education of all the nation’s children. The State barely provides for education as it is, and that has nothing to do with anyone working in the DOE, and everything to do with the fact that the political will to bring about the change in the education system which would suit you, just doesn’t exist.

You could certainly make the argument, in the Oireachtas at least. It’s not a very compelling one, and it would have no effect in Irish law. I think you missed the preamble to Article 45:

DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL POLICY

ARTICLE 45

The principles of social policy set forth in this Article are intended for the general guidance of the Oireachtas. The application of those principles in the making of laws shall be the care of the Oireachtas exclusively, and shall not be cognisable by any Court under any of the provisions of this Constitution.

You'll have to take a few deep breaths and make up your mind. Because you are all over the place. One minute, churches don't contribute anything to organisation of schools (this is somehow despite the fact they often supply the land/building) because that is done by principals who get paid by the State. Now, it has changed so that whatever Church is patron is getting paid instead of the principal.

I've tried to explain it to you as simple as possible a few times. Any organisation (religious or not) can put in effort to develop a school. If they satisfy the governance and other conditions, coupled with attracting sufficient students, then the government will supply the teachers to teach those kids.

Apparently, providing the premises and the organisational structure is nothing in your book, yet you appear to be incapable of doing it yourself...........

It would be helpful if you can point me towards the legislation that prevents any individual or organisation from setting up their own school. Thanks.

Here is a list of some schools which were set up: https://www.educatetogether.ie/all-schools-search/

All organisations are entitled to the same assistance from the State. Whether religious or not.

Now it would be great if you could send on the link to that statute I was asking for.

As usual you make claims but never back them up.

The actual figures are below, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland

As of 2021, mainstream post-primary schools numbered as follows:

Type of school Number (total: 731) Percentage of total

Catholic 345 47.2%

Multi-denominational 210 28.7%

Inter-denominational 151 20.6%

Church of Ireland 23 3.1%

Presbyterian 1 0.1%

Methodist 1 <0.1%

Jewish 1 <0.1%

Quaker 1 <0.1%

The inter-denominational schools (usually ETB) are both Catholic and Church of Ireland ethos due to historical reasons. They teach religion as fact during the school day so there is really no difference between them and the "official" Catholic (or CoI) schools.

BTW the only person who mentioned a law about building schools is yourself. Just more waffle and guff.

Thanks for confirming and admitting that I was correct and you were wrong. There are less Catholic secondary schools than non-Catholic ones. Which is precisely what I said. Your own figure is about 47% Catholic vs. 53% non-Catholic. I'd hope that we can agree that 47% is less than 53%?

Still waiting on this law that prevents any individual or organisation from setting up a school. It couldn't just be laziness now, could it?

You are either willfully obtuse or ignorant of my point. My point is Mickey Harte lost his daughter through a brutal murder and by virtue of his faith it has helped him endure. Barry McGuigan had far much more misfortune in his life some of which was documented on a recent Tommy Tiernan show. But again it is clear, that his religious faith has helped him endure such tragic misfortune.

Comments such as yours above speak of a poster with a clear agenda with goes way beyond the subject matter of this thread. But I sense I am not the first poster to point this out to you, thus far.

I have already pointed out that I neither consider myself religious, nor believe in God - but I would not knock people who find solace and benefit from it. Your hatred of all things religious (with misnomer stereotypes) which ironically has a religious fervor.

Have you got any advice for the OP at all? Or are you merely using this thread to shoehorn your agenda into it?

Try reading a post before hitting Reply. Not all of the 53% are actualy non-catholic. And you're the only one who mentioned a law about building schools, so you are talking to yourself.

Don't forget to come up with some examples of schools that have been built over the past ten years or so using the process that you keep suggesting please?

Come on man. You can't be being spoon fed all the time. Make a bit of effort. I asked you about the law preventing you or any other organisation from setting up your own school and you responded with a question, which I answered, and I then re-asked my original question. Which you again try to ignore by asking another question.

You need to put in a bit of effort yourself. Most people move on from the "moan moan moan until someone gives me what I want" stage by primary school

Harte is being sectarian. He used his position within the GAA to push his specific religion's beliefs. Including telling people living in another jurisdiction how they should vote. He even forced Catholic belief and practices onto his playing squad. In a divided society in Northern Ireland where sporting organisations are supposed to be trying to build bridges across the sectarian divide, that's totally unacceptable behaviour. Harte is fully entitled to his religious beliefs but, as I said, using his GAA position to impose his beliefs upon people was wrong.

So the honest answer is there's no such schools that have been developed using the process you're proposing. It's not a real proposal, just a distraction, a veil to hide behind to distract attention from the lack of provision for non-catholic families.

I've no idea what your obsession with 'the law to prevent' is all about. There are no laws to prevent lots of things. There's no law to prevent me from building a clown college and asking Dept Ed to fund it, but it is still not going to happen.

Your repeated proposal for people to DIY their own school is not a realistic proposal, just a distraction.

So are you giving up on the 'just build your own school' solution now that we've confirmed that it is totally unrealistic and impractical? Good to have made some progress anyway.

Shall we remind ourselves of the 'many other options' you've suggested

• drive to the other side of the city or county to attend the ET school (where you won't get a place because you're outside the catchment area)
• move house to attend school
• keep their heads down, say their prayers, join in the the nativity to attend school
• start off a 20 year project to fundraise and buy land so that their five year old can attend school

They're not really great options, in fairness.

Are you still going to keep up that Trumpian tactic of telling people they can't impose their beliefs on others so that you can continue to impose your beliefs on others?

Current catchment area admission criteria are more stringent than they were in the past, so it is less likely to be an option than before.