In January, Nikki Murphy from Terenure in Dublin received a rejection letter from a primary school in her locality. They would not allow her five-year-old son Reuben to enrol as a junior infants student because he is not a baptised Catholic.
It was the first of nine such rejection letters Nikki received in quick succession.
Reuben’s story reached the front page of the international edition of the New York Times a short while later and Nikki began campaigning for an Educate Together primary school to be opened in her area.
Nikki joined Kathryn Thomas, filling in for Ray D'Arcy on RTÉ Radio 1, to give listeners the good news: Riverview Educate Together National School will open this September and Reuben has been offered a place, which Nikki has accepted.
“Initially I just wanted Reuben to get a place in school. Ultimately, I applied to 17 schools for 2016. It was really difficult,” Nikki told Kathryn, before explaining how she spearheaded a campaign to open an Educate Together national school in her locality.
“You generally don’t get the rejection letter; you’re just ignored. And if you follow up, you’re told that they’ve offered places in line with their enrolment criteria. Say if it’s a Catholic school, they’ll give places first to Catholic children within the parish, or maybe siblings, then they will offer places to Catholic children from outside the parish, and then a number of different categories, maybe, for other religions... and right at the very end of the list is ‘no religion’,” said Nikki.
Listen back to Nikki Murphy's interview on RTÉ Radio 1 with Kathryn Thomas:
Nikki hopes the opening of Riverview ETNS will encourage the Government to review the legislation, Section 7.3 (C) of the Equal Status Act, which allows for schools to give preference to certain children.
“We shouldn’t have to baptise our children for them to get a place in school. We shouldn’t have to do something that goes so completely against our conscience. These are all State-funded schools, they should be open to everyone and all State schools should treat children equally. They have a constitutional right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of religion,” she told RTÉ Radio 1.
