any thoughts ?

[Tribesman]

Correct me if I'm wrong Tribesman, but the Catholic Church actually wrote the Constitution for the ROI, right? And there's no mention of it being a secular republic ala the USA or France, correct?

Since you asked .
You are wrong Don , completely on all points mentioned there .
The holy catholic and apostolic church has a special position due to it being the religeon of the majority , but the state cannot endorse any one religeon , neither can it discriminate against any religeon(apart from on public safety grounds or something like that ).
One thing that is in the constitution though , the State guarantees free education , we don't get it though .

[Don Corleone]

Since you asked .
You are wrong Don , completely on all points mentioned there .
The holy catholic and apostolic church has a special position due to it being the religeon of the majority , but the state cannot endorse any one religeon , neither can it discriminate against any religeon(apart from on public safety grounds or something like that ).
One thing that is in the constitution though , the State guarantees free education , we don't get it though .

My mistake. I would have sworn that the Catholic Church wrote your Constitution, which was why divorce & remarriage was constitutionally prohibited until 10 years ago and why the Republic paid the settlements on the sexual abuse cases over there. Oh well, live and learn.

If you are a secular republic, by Constitution, than you're out of luck. You shouldn't be giving state funds to the Catholic church to run your schools, any schools the church sets up should be self-funded. Some would argue they shouldn't be allowed period, that all children should be forced to go to state schools (though I wouldn't). As long as the Church is taking State funds, they shouldn't be allowed to discriminate on a religious basis.

[Tribesman]

My mistake. I would have sworn that the Catholic Church wrote your Constitution, which was why divorce & remarriage was constitutionally prohibited until 10 years ago and why the Republic paid the settlements on the sexual abuse cases over there. Oh well, live and learn.

Live and learn Don , them sex abuse and physical abuse cases , not quite that simple .
Many occured in cases with people under the care of the state , orhans , poor people , bastards , minor criminals , unmarried mothers , disabled ......the State it providing its services to "care" for those people sub-contracted to private business , in this case the church . So there was dual responsibilty .
Now the church did pay some money for settlements , then in exchange for indemnity from any and all further costs did a land deal with the politicians .
Now since this is Ireland and it has a big history of dodgy land deals and politicians thats a whole new can of worms opened up .

Anyhow that divorce thing you mention , add in the abortion thing and you see that Ireland is just a deeply good conservative country that supports tradition and family values
Add in that it likes private enterprise and has a hands off approach with small government and it resembles paradise from some American right wing perspectives .
Welcome to paradise

[Patricius]

My mistake. I would have sworn that the Catholic Church wrote your Constitution, which was why divorce & remarriage was constitutionally prohibited until 10 years ago and why the Republic paid the settlements on the sexual abuse cases over there. Oh well, live and learn.

If you are a secular republic, by Constitution, than you're out of luck. You shouldn't be giving state funds to the Catholic church to run your schools, any schools the church sets up should be self-funded. Some would argue they shouldn't be allowed period, that all children should be forced to go to state schools (though I wouldn't). As long as the Church is taking State funds, they shouldn't be allowed to discriminate on a religious basis.

Eamonn De Valera wrote it, and rejected a few rather pushy clerical suggestions. Apart from the special position provision which was deleted later, the remainder that had a religious bearing was slight enough for the time, and can be re-interpreted fairly smoothly in a less sectarian, more secular way - i.e, the meaning of marriage might be de-gendered in the future or not. I would note that Ireland remained democratic throughout its existence and managed with no more than two constitutions, and no fascist movement of any size. A good others failed in that regard.

This story is a sham. Admisions in Ireland are needlessly complicated, or more correctly highly arbritrary. Some children failed to gain admission through a failure to grasp the system. That paper used a complicated situation to attack both church and state.

The church role in so many schools is so slight as to be barely noticeable.

Delegating certain educational functions to a given body, whether a church or semi-private vocation body, might be something of a relic, but a state system would be a headache no one wants. If a certain organisation is utilised, its ethos has to be taken on board - note that this never really involves barring children on the basis of religion as in the UK. Remember too that a good deal of resources comes from the Church through property (personnel in the past) and some level of donations. The government would sooner want a hole in the head than sustain the full cost of education.

Nearly all the abusive facilities were in the charge of autonomous religious orders. A bishop has limited enough authority over his own priests, and effectively none over an order. I don't think the state took up the tab out of the goodness of its heart. There are probably legalities not disclosed that make the state pay. Who knows?

Some thoughts... that's all...

[Tribesman]

Oh well , just to update .
The non denominational school that was to be opened has had to postpone . Apparently it has too many people on its admissions list .
So now it has to sort out how many it can actualy take depending on if it can get more buildings , more teachers , more money .......
Then since the numbers on the list are way beyond its expected maximum enlarged capabilty it then has to decide which customers it can take and which it must exclude .