@Jonn: The woman that gave the course is a big fan of Judith Butler and ”Queer Theory” . Sickos.

@Dave Callaghan:
And then Norma Foley with the help of that toadying so-called ‘journalist’ on Newstalk tried to gaslight people into thinking it was all just a big misunderstanding! Disgusting!

@Jonn: they are in Catholic schools now

@Jonn: 2,500 allegations of sexual abuse in the latest scoping enquiry. I know what type of school I’d like to go to, and it’s sure not one run by any religious order

@Jonn: be careful not to fund Muslim or Hindu specific school either, unless private with our money.
also I do not like the idea that a Muslim parent would find Christmas uncomfortable and succeed to cancel the festivities.
that happened in England.
so be careful what you wish for

@Kevin Kerr:
What type of school is it then ? One where you can identify as a cat one day and a kettle the next ?

@Regular John: It’s quite simple: A school with no religious ethos or involvement

@Kevin Kerr:
‘Allegations’ being the key word! How many of these allegations are against dead people not around to defend their reputation? How many are at least partly motivated by the lure of a potential payout? How many would stand up in a court of law? I don’t doubt for a minute there are genuine cases but an allegation is just that,an allegation!

@Jonn: ah come off it! The figures used in the scoping enquiry came from the Religious Orders themselves. It’s a pattern everywhere the Catholic Church went. No wonder we can never deal with the abuses and put them in the past when people like you are in denial.

@Jonn: dont want our kids sitting in catholic indoctrination schools either. Should be up to the state – they provide the funding. You want your child religiously educated either do it yourself or pay to send them to a private school where they indoctrinate your kids.

@Jonn: bloody hell Jonn, have you been asleep for the last 30 years? Abuse was endemic as enquiries and investigations have found. To deny this is to deny reality. And anyone who went to a religious school in the 70’s and 80’s in Dublin know this – just about everyone knows a victim or survivor

@Helen McKernan:
The state doesn’t provide funding,taxpayers provide funding. And time and again when given the choice parents opt for their children to attend schools with a religious ethos! Even many Muslim and Hindu parents would rather their kids went to a Catholic school than an atheist Educate Together one!

@Jonn: non religious doesn’t meant athiest, lots of schools around the world don’t do religious indoctrination during school hours, it doesn’t make them athiest. Unfortunately.

@Kevin Kerr:
And there was me thinking ethos were good for kids, silly me.

@Regular John: not religious ethos, so yes, silly you

@Kevin Kerr:
Religious ethos like the ten commandments? Morals, principles, standards etc. you’d prefer kids aren’t taught them ?

@Franno: woke=a cult that promotes kindness and inclusion but is unable to practise kindness or inclusion to people not in the woke cult and believes that reducing people to their labels will promote inclusion and that depending on your label a status is granted regardless of the behaviour of the individual who bears the label .

@Franno: Freaks on the wrong side of any arguments.

@Vincent Alexander: let them set up their own schools then or indoctrinated them at home. State provided education should be secular and the state should not be involved in brainwashing kids into any religion. It’s a form of abuse. Set up Sunday schools, like they do in other places, hold them on Saturdays and Sundays while the parents are in church.

@Dermot Blaine: But they did set up their own schools, that is exactly why most schools are religious run. It was these schools which accepted pupils from all religions and none in a time when the state did not provide any or limited education. Originally it was in some cases landlords/landowners who established schools to provide education to their workers children or church bodies who set up schools to educate children of the poor. The state came late to the table in providing education so unless parents wish to vote in favour of divestment and the state fund this choice then schools will remain as is and it will only be new buildings bought and sanctioned by the state who will offer greater choice. But as parents are the primary educators , then parents who want to have their children educated in a religious setting have that democratic right.

@Eileen Kelly: the church was given the land to do this…for free…all that land.

@Eileen Kelly: no it’s not why most schools are religious run at all. The state outsourced education and health to the church in the early days of the state. The Church wanted control over every aspect of our lives, the state didn’t have the money to say now. It’s a situation that grew out of those historical reasons. By all means educate Catholic kids in Catholic schools, but indoctrinating kids into religion should not be a function of the state.

@orla griffin: In the past, the site for national schools was provided locally – either directly by the patron or as a result of local fundraising. There was also a local contribution to the building costs and the running costs .Most land was donated by wealthy benefactors and parishioners, it was at one stage required to donate 10% of land and money as a bequest in a will. The state did donate land , often unused or infertile land to monastic orders whose labour created wealth, for instance the Cistercians. The Catholic church was never a single monolithic property corporation. Every single parish community throughout Europe owned its own church and schools, Ultimately most of the wealth of the parishes and monasteries came from the free-will offerings of the faithful.

@Vincent Alexander: not at the tax payers expense, no. All schools should be secular. If you want a religious school pay for it!

@orla griffin: correct Orla and they still own and are selling that land. The Church made a fortune out of providing schools and the torture houses they called industrial schools, mother baby homes and orphanages.

@Alan OConnor: I remember several years ago, reading how a school in south Dublin would be the best and most great of pedagogical schools…only to become ruined in debt, whilst it costs a fair few bob to be schooled by the best; that being SJ schools and the Rock. (And years in queuing).

Say what you like about schools run by Catholicism/Jesuitism: the Society are second to none when it comes to education.
Educate yourself.

@Eileen Kelly: In Dublin, during the building of new housing estates of the 40/50s, the Church bought land from the developers at cost price, to built Churches & schools. The money to pay for this was borrowed by the diocese & that debt was then handed over to the people of the parish to pay off. This was done mostly by a scam called the “Planned Giving” where every home in a parish was expected to donate every week, irrespective of how poor the household was, which at a time of large families, usually meant struggling to make ends meet. If you didn’t pay, you knew all about it and thanks to the priests, so did your neighbours. So, the land, schools etc were paid for by the people of the parish, but somehow it still belongs to the church, to sell and profit from. How does that work?

@Vincent Alexander: Parents have a right to send their chikdren to whatever school they wish. But the state should not be funding religious education in schools. That belongs in the home.

@Paul Treacy: blackrock? You’re actually quoting blackrock as a paragon of virtue?

This is exactly why ALL religion needs to be out of schools.

@Vincent Alexander: Or how about parents who want their kids following a particular religious ethos teaching their kids themselves. Bring them to church, let them join groups etc. but keep it completely separate from the school curriculum. Everybody wins, no?

@Dermot Blaine: The state outsourced education and health to the church because those who killed for an independent state had no plans for either when independence was achieved.
Parents who wish their children to be educated in a school with a particular religious ethos also pay taxes.
Catholicism is as much part of our culture and heritage as the Irish language. The Irish language was not our mother tongue yet it was and is still forced on children.
I attended a religious run school. I was taught religion and not indoctrinated or brainwashed.

@Andrew Farrelly: If there are sufficient numbers of parents wishing to have religion incorporated into the curriculum their wishes should be respected, others could opt out.

@Vincent Alexander: of course you were indoctrinated and brainwashed. Imagine if kids never heard of religion until they reached the age of reason and you took them aside to tell them about talking snakes, women made of men’s ribs, worldwide flood, virgin birth, a god incarnating himself so mankind could sacrifice himself TO himself, bread and wine turning into flesh and blood which is then eaten by his followers. An all powerful god who changes his mind, who will grant you favours if you get down on your knees and pray hard enough. An all loving god who gives cancer to babies. They’d laugh at you. Rightly so.

@Dermot Blaine: The only brainwashing and indoctrination I encountered at school was Irish history and language. People have the right to believe in religion or not. Parents have a right also to choose secular education or education incorporating religion for their children.

@Alan OConnor: What’s laughable is your comment.

@Vincent Alexander: yes they have that choice, I’m not arguing. But it’s not the States job to teach mumbo Jumbo in schools. Religion would die out in a generation or 2 if kids were not introduced to it until they reached the age of reason, because in the cold light of reason, religion makes zero sense.

@Alan OConnor:
Religion is part of our cultural heritage. That’s why we are 90% happy with it.
That applies also to the other religions.
The present system was set up to give Protestants their own schools. It wasn’t a Catholic issue.

This is just the usual crowd, who want ‘CHANGE’ so that they themselves will benefit.

Big fan of the world’s biggest pahedo ring are you?

@Vincent Alexander: What religion tho? You’ve literally just made my point and that’s exactly why schools should be secular. Religion should be the the responsibility of the parents, not the school!

In the last census 69% of the population identified as Catholic, down 13% in ten years. I’d imagine a large part of that percentage would be people of an older generation too. Going off my own lived experience, I’m in my 30′s with school going kids, most of my friends have no interest in religion and haven’t had their kids christened, myself included. I’ve absolutely no issue with anyone practicing religion, each to their own. Just keep it out of education.

@Alan OConnor: And if the parents don’t share your ‘vision’?

@Andrew Farrelly: But the vast majority of parents want to keep religion in schools, surveys always confirm this. Unfortunately you and your friends are in the minority.

@Dermot Blaine:
Why not just tell the 5 year old that boys don’t wear dresses so he doesn’t appear as some kind freak amongst the other kids ?

@Dermot Blaine: I wonder will they buy him always or tampax to go with his dress..

@Niall English: Is it the denim or the dress that has you so perturbed, or the combination of the two maybe?

@Dermot Blaine:
It is everybody else’s business.
There is such a thing as cultural norms, which it is just good manners to respect.
We benefit from norms and customs and when they are gone we will regret it.
it is disturbing how tiny minority views and interests have infiltrated our society. It’s a top down hijack, which began with Leftist infiltration of the 3rd level colleges a generation ago.

@Dermot Blaine: now that’s just a bonkers comment. As a parent it’s your job to guide your child along there most important years and to show them right from wrong. Why the hell would you let a 5 year old go to school in a dress. Itsone thing for kids to dress up as they play together but school is not the place. If you are going to affirm every decision a 5 year old makes well I think that child is going to be a very confused individual when they hit there 20s.

@Gavin Smartr: exactly, you said it. It is the parents job and is nobody else’s business

@Dermot Blaine: Yes it is. It’s parents responsibility to look after their children and not expose them to the freaks and perverts that are pushing this s…t

@Niall English: Well said. Common sense

@Dermot Blaine: I’d imagine there are many adult individuals who would love to see little boys wearing dresses? They need 24 hour monitoring.

@Kevin Kerr: Playing into the hands of the perverts out there.

@thomas molloy: check that with parents and children who go to these schools and aren’t catholic.. is sitting at the back of the class colouring on your own during 2.5 hours of religion per week never-ending prayers before and after each day and lunchtime called being welcomed!!!!

@thomas molloy: they take them as they had to be forced to by a law 6 years ago.The article from 2 years ago, that I’ve pasted below, shows they’re not happy about it, “The Catholic Bishops’ Conference looked for a “binding commitment” from the State that Catholic children would be given priority access to Catholic schools, in exchange for the divestment of a small number of Catholic primary schools to multi-denominational status, documents received by RTÉ News reveal.
They show that at a meeting last June, the bishops told the Minister for Education that their support for the divestment of a number of their schools was “dependent on the ability of schools remaining under Catholic patronage to operate fully as Catholic schools, including the ability to prioritise enrolment of Catholics”.

@orla griffin: Not a typical experience. Went myself and Sent 5 non Catholic children to Catholic schools and never had a problem. Was on Catholic school boards of management and respecting children’s rights was plainly the norm. Militant anti Catholic, anti anything people are going to try to deny others rights more like. Not saying you are such a person.

@Shaner Mac:
I see children taken 10 miles to an Educate Together school, passing the local school which is within walking distance. If that is’nt crazy, I don’t know what is.
It seems to be a statement of social / ideological superiority on the part of the parents. It certainly does’nt benefit the children

@thomas molloy: I wish my non catholic children had the same experience ce as yours. Weve had to move them out …I could list many reasons why but explain why a non catholic child isn’t allowed have their photograph taken on a school day when the rest of the class are having theirs taken because it’s only for communion children. I don’t understand how a school can claim to be inclusive and yet do small petty things like that to young children.

@Shaner Mac: my kids attend a multi denominational gaelscoil under forms patrunacha not etb so that’s another one anyway (not sure if there are more)

@Franno: Your children can stay in until 3.00 if you wish!

@Sean O’Dhubhghaill:
And also move SPHE indoctrination class to a similar time slot so the parents who don’t need their kids ‘educated’ on the 27 different genders and what kind of porn they should be watching can take them home instead!

@Sean O’Dhubhghaill:
How about we just stop pandering to the atheist minority?

@orla griffin: All schools Educate Together School and others have such a deeply important job to do caring for young people that no hurt should be caused to them by differences in opinion about management structures.

@Brian Smith:
Bit of a silly rant but you are correct when you say Ireland is non secular, still very much a RC country.