Archbishop slams State 'lip service' to Anglican schools
THE Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin is to make a dramatic intervention in the general election, attacking the Government's treatment of the minority Anglican community in regard to religious education.
Dr John Neill plans to hold a news conference today at which he will accuse the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, and her civil servants, of paying no more than lip service to the education of children attending Church of Ireland schools.
The Archbishop has taken the unusual step of giving advance media notice of his midday news conference to maximise his criticism of the FF-PD coalition.
He plans to explain in detail his grievances to journalists at the Church's annual Synod in Kilkenny.
The outspoken prelate is understood to be enraged that officials in the Department of Education have not respected in practice the concept of Christian education on which the schools' system was founded.
In recent months, Dr Neill has clashed with the Government over its proposal to site the new Childrens' National Hospital in the grounds of the Mater Hospital on Dublin's northside, and has been lobbying for a dual system which would accommodate Tallaght hospital, of which he is the patron.
While acknowledging the State's assistance in assisting the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland schools, the Archbishop will warn that the "whole pattern of education which has served this Republic so well and given due recognition to the majority and minority contribution to education is now under serious threat".
Citing the Department of Education's planning for rapidly developing areas on the East Coast and the Midlands, the Archbishop will say "the needs of an area for school places is being addressed but in an unimaginative manner.
Undermine
"Schools with four classes are asked to virtually double in size overnight, and those with eight class teachers are being asked to become two stream or more.
"Some of our schools do indeed need to grow but not at the rate proposed."
The archbishop says the result is that in some areas, the Church of Ireland pupils would become a minority in their own schools.
"This, in the end, if the trend were to be allowed to develop, would seriously undermine the ethos of the school, and indeed the close link between church and school that is extremely important in so many places." Concluding, the Archbishop said that "whoever enters Government must address the issue as to whether everything is to be solved by building everything bigger and bigger, or whether the richness and diversity that has been our pattern in the Republic is worth preserving."
"Faith communities require an answer to this question."
John Cooney
- John Cooney
