LAST Sunday, Alan Ruddock made claims about my treatment of funding arrangements for Protestant schools which I consider grossly misrepresented my position.I strongly disagree that the changes the Government introduced in last year's Budget were discriminatory.

As Mr Ruddock outlines, the State has made special effort to ensure that parents can exercise their right to have their children educated within their denominational ethos since the introduction of free secondary education in 1967.

This Government remains committed to ensuring that children from Protestant backgrounds continue to attend schools that reflect their ethos.

Let's look at some facts.

In last year's Budget, grants totalling €2.8m used by schools to employ caretakers and secretaries were withdrawn from fee-charging Protestant schools. These grants weren't paid to fee-charging schools operating under a Catholic ethos. So the Budget move eliminated an anomalous position that had developed over time.

In that Budget, the Government also changed the basis for allocating teachers from 18 to one to 20 to one for all fee-charging schools.

In describing these changes, Mr Ruddock is both inaccurate and disingenuous.

He wrote: "To defray the costs of these fees, the Protestant proportion of the grant paid to all free schools was grouped into a lump sum that would then be shared out to parents who could not afford to pay, ensuring that Protestant schools, though fee-paying, would embrace the entire community and not just the wealthy. In rural Protestant schools, more than 50 per cent of the pupils receive grants and at the top end of the scale these grants cover most of the cost of sending a boarder to school in Sligo, Bandon or Kilkenny ... [Minister] O'Keeffe, however, has decided that must change.'

At no point in his article does Mr Ruddock mention that the Protestant block grant -- the grant to which he refers -- remains. Indeed, it has increased this year in line with capitation increases paid to voluntary secondary schools that don't charge fees.

The grant covers day-to-day school running overheads, as well as tuition and boarding costs. It is distributed through the secondary education committee which has representatives from the Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist churches, and the Society of Friends.

Parents applying to the committee are means-tested and funds are distributed to individual schools on the basis of pupil needs. This grant was €6.5m this year.

In my many meetings with representatives of the Protestant community, I've stressed that this grant remains in place. This grant -- and only this grant -- defrays the cost of attending or boarding at a Protestant school.

By making the changes to the pupil-teacher ratio for all schools in the fee-charging sector, the Government recognised that fee-charging schools, regardless of religious ethos, have extra income which they can use and have used to employ extra teachers over and above those paid from Exchequer funds.

If I hadn't made this change in respect of all fee-charging schools, I'd have been faced with making a more severe change to the staffing position of schools that don't charge fees in order to satisfy budgetary requirements.

I believe the measures that differentiated between those schools with fee income and those with no fee income were fairer all round.

Exempting Protestant fee-charging schools from the changes in last year's Budget and treating them as a special case would conflict with Article 44.2 of the Constitution, which states that "State aid for schools shall not discriminate between schools under the management of different religious denominations".

I don't accept Mr Ruddock's claim that changes to the funding of Protestant schools must inevitably lead to their closure. I've met representatives of the Church of Ireland Board of Education and the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland and others to discuss the Budget changes. Furthermore, my officials have met representatives from the Secondary Education Committee.

I'm fully aware that, for Protestant fee-charging schools in rural areas with a predominately Protestant enrolment, there may be limitations to their fee income.

By contrast, Protestant fee-charging schools in Dublin in more recent times have been able to maintain or increase enrolment and fee income by attracting greater numbers of pupils who aren't from the Protestant tradition.

At all stages, I've said I'm willing to consider any proposals that would more effectively focus funding to meet the objectives of improving access and sustaining Protestant schools, particularly those in rural areas. I've still to receive any proposals from the Secondary Education Committee.

I've conveyed the concerns individual rural schools have expressed about how funding is administered and I've emphasised that it's vital that the most vulnerable students and schools are supported.

I've provided information on the level of funding fee-charging Protestant schools would receive if they joined the free education scheme. It remains open to any fee-charging school to seek to join the free education scheme.

My door remains open.

Sunday Independent