Below is an article I wrote for The Irish Times. It was published on Tuesday 26th January 2010.

NOW THAT our primary schools have reopened after the recent cold spell, and in the light of the astounding revelations in the latest Irish Times opinion poll, it is timely to explore the apparent thaw in the Catholic Church’s attitude to the question of pluralism and patronage in our 3,200 primary schools.

Bishop Leo O’Reilly, chairman of the bishops’ commission on education, recently made an interesting contribution (“Catholics entitled to their schools”, Opinion and Analysis, December 19th).

“There is a need for pluralism of education in Ireland so that parents have a choice, as far as possible, about what kind of school their children will attend,” he wrote. “This right to parental choice in education is recognised in most democracies and enshrined in our Constitution.

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This Youtube clip is of my Second Stage speech on the Civil Partnership Bill 2009, which I made in the Dáil on the 20th of January 2010. I would love to hear any thoughts or comments you might have.

It was great to see the large numbers of young people at the Young Scientist exhibition in Dublin today. I was very impressed by the levels of enthusiasm and interest in science, particularly when it is often remarked how under-promoted the subject is. The students in our schools today are the key to Ireland’s economic success tomorrow.

That is why it is so regrettable to see the effects of the government’s cutbacks on our education system. Resources for education have been cut dramatically over the last three budgets. Funds for schools and new buildings are falling and teachers pay has also been cut repeatedly.

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Deputy Ruairí Quinn:
I have been in the House for quite some time and I have listened to various speeches on various occasions in good times and in bad.  One word was missing from yesterday’s speech by the Minister for Finance and this morning’s speech by the Taoiseach.  It is a simple Anglo-Saxon word and it is the word “sorry”.  Not once had Fianna Fáil said to itself, to the nation or to the Members of this House, “sorry, we screwed up”.  They do not do apologies in Fianna Fáil but if they did it would be a start.  Yes, we have screwed up.  Yes, this country has screwed up and some people are more responsible than others for it.  The start of a recovery that would embrace the principles of citizenship, to which my friend and colleague, Deputy Michael D. Higgins referred and which was once a mantra for the former Taoiseach, and would be fixed.
We will get out of this crisis.  We will not get out of it the way the Labour Party wants to get out of it.  We will not get out of it as quickly as Fianna Fáil thinks we will get out of it.  We will carry for the rest of their lives people who will be the walking wounded because of the damage done to them.  I am thinking in particular of the type of person referred to by Eamon Gilmore, such a kid looking for a second chance at education in a youthreach programme because of a broken home.  That will now be denied.  All of the research shows that such a kid will cost us the Government, me and the taxpayer far more money when he or she ends up in jail than the miserable amount of saving that cutting the youthreach programme will achieve.  This is not even to count in the cost of the damage to such people, their partners and perhaps to their children.
International surveys show that equal societies are fairer societies.

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