There have been fresh calls to change Ireland's laws so that no child can be refused a school place on the basis of their religion.
Ninety per cent of Irish schools are controlled by the Catholic Church and Section 7(3)(c) of the Equal Status Act 2000 allows schools operated by religious institutions to discriminate in their enrolment policies against unbaptised children.
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, the state's human rights advisory body, has recommended that school admission laws should be updated in an effort to end discrimination at primary school level for once and for all.
The findings are contained in the Admissions to Schools Bill (2015), which is due to go before the Oireachtas for debate in the coming weeks.
The commission also recommended that schools make sure their religious classes avoid indoctrination.
This week Dublin dad Paddy Monahan handed his
petition for equal school access, featuring more than 20,000 signatures, into Leinster House.
Mr Monahan, a barrister, told Newstalk:
"This law puts ridiculous pressure on parents, essentially to get their children baptised in order to be in the top category. About 97% of schools have enrolment criteria and in the top category in all those schools is whether or not your child is baptised. Then in the second category will be if the child was baptised in another area. Further down the list is "other" - my child is in the "other" category".
"It's a tax-payer funded school like all the schools I'm talking about. But as the law stands he won't get in".
Do you support equal school access? Join the conversation on Twitter @HerFamilydotie.
