Get back to me when that happens. Not holding my breath though.

Artile 43 Subsection 4.

The State shall provide for free primary education and shall endeavour to supplement and give reasonable aid to private and corporate educational initiative, and, when the public good requires it, provide other educational facilities or institutions with due regard, however, for the rights of parents, especially in the matter of religious and moral formation.

Note the wording above.

My comments on Sinnott were included as an adjunct to Simon’s article/post.

J.

Phasing out such fee support could be considered but it’s more important to look at a full re-examination of all schools in a way which directly connects local communities to their schools. For instance, VECs could be abolished and replaced with District School Boards with elected members rather than councillors getting another set of expenses. They would have responsibility for all primary and secondary schools in their district, including planning new schools and closing undersubscribed ones rather than everything being decided centrally.

True not all folk can afford to send their kids to private schools, but that does not take away from the fact that the subsidies paid to those private schools should be at least proportional to the public schools.
What of course it does. They choose to not go to the schools that the state provides, they choose to pay. Why should the state subsides that?

The governement is just giving them back value for THEIR money…
Bull they don’t give back money to people who choose to stay in the public sector why should people who pay private fees be any way different

Fact is we have 3 systems of secondary education in Ireland, the free and the parents can’t afford anymore segment, the fee paying, and then the largest big which is technically free but for which parents are expected to contribute hundreds of euroes and sometimes more just to have the basics, like a sports team or perhaps a music class, or heaven help us some computers in school. I’m not suggest that we target only this middle segment can cut the free but can’t afford anymore folks adrift, but I was targetting my money in the department it wouldn’t be at the top segment.

Reference: Sinnott v. Minister for Education [2001] 2 IR 545.

Looks like this is a policy decision or direction. For those interested, the Supreme Court judgements of Keane, CJ. [former], Hardiman, J. and Murray, CJ. are of note. Keane was dissenting with Denham. Keane’s judgement is well thought out and he makes an interesting point on who is to say that a person of adult characteristics and age in time [who has not benefitted from his 'free education' allowances] can be judged to have reached expiry age under the constitutional provisions.

Generally, the majority judges suggested that it was clear from the Irish and English text of Article 42 that the guarantee of free primary education was confined to children and the court if it intervened to protect Sinott was in violation of the doctrine of separation of powers.

Bottom line: Litigation in this area is far from clear. Judiciary may side with legislators, who incidentally will be defending in most cases.

J.

As for telling parents to take schools to court, how idiotic is that? Talk about washing your hands of a problem and letting other people pay huge legal fees to try and get basic rights for their children… She seems to be saying that the Government has done all it can (or is willing to do) and if that hasn’t solved the problem, oh well.