Bishops join Budget row in call to halt school cuts
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CATHOLIC bishops and the religious orders last night said the recent Budget had targeted the most vulnerable in society.
Their intervention in the Budget controversy increases the pressure on the Government to climb down over its planned cutbacks for primary schools.
In a joint statement issued last night the Bishops' Commission for Education and the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI) expressed dismay that the education cuts hurt the most vulnerable, and they called on the Government to revisit the Budget.
In a sharp rebuke to the beleaguered Government, the Bishops and CORI warned ministers to bear in mind that education provision guaranteed the future of the nation.
"It is how we deal with the most vulnerable that defines our society," the statement said.
Support
"We urge policymakers to be mindful that the educational outcome for our young people is in direct proportion to the support we give those who teach in our schools and those who manage them."
The church leaders acknowledged that the current economic downturn represented a very difficult situation for the country and they conceded that difficult choices had to be made in every area of Government spending.
But the Bishops and CORI felt obliged to highlight their concern and dismay at a catalogue of specific cuts.
On behalf of the two most influential groups in the Irish Church, Bishop Leo O'Reilly, chairman of the Bishops' Commission for Education, and Sr Mary Reynolds, CORI's Director of Education, objected to the book grant being abolished for all schools not in the DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) scheme for disadvantaged schools.
Disadvantaged
"As a consequence, many disadvantaged children not in DEIS schools will have to do without the most basic educational resource -- books," they warned.
Bishop O'Reilly and Sr Reynolds also pointed out the consequences of the Budget decision to reduce by 50pc the total grant allocation for Travellers for the year 2009/2010, which will only be paid to DEIS schools.
"Children of the Travelling community will experience cutbacks in the resources that afford them equal opportunity in the education system, resources which help them secure an equitable future in our society", they said.
On the Budget's imposition of a cap on the allocation of language support teachers, Bishop O'Reilly and Sr Reynolds said this measure discriminated against the most vulnerable newcomers in our schools who did not speak English.
The abolition of the Leaving Certificate Applied Grant from 2009/2010 onwards would mean that many of the most materially and academically vulnerable would now lose out on the only accessible route they had to the Leaving Certificate, they added.
"In the absence of this grant, schools will struggle to provide the programme which inevitably will have to be curtailed and some students will be in danger of falling through the system."
Bishop O'Reilly and Sr Reynolds said that this list of cuts "compound an already difficult situation for the Irish education system, which receives proportionately less Government funding than almost any other OECD member country"
Dropped
According to the 'OECD Education Report 2008', the proportion of Ireland's GDP invested in education has dropped from 5.2pc in 1995 to 4.6pc in 2005 while the current OECD average for the proportion of GDP invested in education is 5.8pc.
"Only two countries, Greece and the Slovak Republic, invest less in education as a percentage of GDP than Ireland," they said.
"In these circumstances education should not have to bear significant cuts in funding as proposed in the recent Budget."
Meanwhile, the Bishop of Ferns yesterday made a direct appeal to Cabinet ministers to reconsider how, in his opinion, the Budget would inflict serious damage on the education and future employment prospects of young children.
Speaking at the annual Mass during the Wexford Opera Festival, Dr Denis Brennan welcomed the Government's change of heart on medical cards for pensioners and on the 1pc levy on the lower paid.
But he urged ministers to take the next step of abandoning its "harsh" measures against children.
"The people marching in Dublin during the past week were saying the same thing which 'Exodus' said three-and-a- half-thousand years ago," Bishop Brennan said.
"The Government has heard the first part of 'Exodus', and I compliment them on it -- 'don't be harsh with the old' -- I hope they will hear the second part too -- 'don't be harsh with the young'."
He added: "I ask them to look again at how the Budget will affect the quality of our children's education and, through that, their lives."
- John Cooney Religion Correspondent
