THE general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, Senator Joe O'Toole, has said legislation which gives schools the right to refuse admission to a child solely because of his or her religion is "immoral, unethical and unconstitutional.
He was commenting on the Employment Equality Bill, passed recently by the Dail. He said the legislation required teachers to present a stronger role model of a school's religious ethos than pupils' parents.
It allowed "teachers' careers to be put at risk because of aspects of their private lives. There is no such demand on parents. There is something deeply disingenuous about an arrangement which, while rightly allowing freedom and protection to parents in the area of marital or personal status and sexual orientation, does not extend the same rights to the teachers of those parents' children," he said.
