Harold McKee, Ulster Unionist Party MLA for South Down has questioned the Minister of Education, Peter Weir, on his intentions for the fair employment of teachers in Northern Ireland.
Mr McKee said:
“Yet again today we have seen the Minister of Education washing his hands of this responsibility. It seems it doesn’t matter whether the Education Minister comes from Sinn Fein or the DUP - equality is not a top priority for either party or their Ministers despite manifesto pledges
“In the DUP manifesto for the Assembly election they committed to end the Article 71 exemption for teaching from Fair Employment. The exemption under Article 71 means that those persons who believe they may have been the subject of religious discrimination cannot bring a complaint under the legislation. It also means there is no requirement on employers of teachers to monitor the community composition of their workforce and that education providers are not required to implement affirmative action procedures which would encourage applications from the under-represented community. Essentially schools are permitted under the law to discriminate on the basis of religion.
“This was of course an issue first brought up by Danny Kinahan nearly 4 years ago and the Ulster Unionist Party has been campaigning on this ever since. It is encouraging to see that the DUP is taking inspiration from the Ulster Unionist Party on their education policy, but now that one of their MLAs is in the role of Minister of Education, we would seek to hold them to their commitment as the Official Opposition.”
Sandra Overend MLA, Ulster Unionist Party Education Spokesperson said:
“When this issue was tabled for debate as an amendment to the Employment Bill in February 2016 forty-five MLAs voted to remove the exemption, but it was blocked by a petition of concern. During that debate we heard arguments around the ‘unintended consequences’ of repealing Article 71, but the only consequence of doing so is true equality.
“Yet again, in the chamber today we saw the Minister of Education pass the buck on to the Executive Office. Now that we are in a new mandate, the time has well and truly come for action. If indeed this is the responsibility of the Executive Office we in the Ulster Unionist Party would call for the Education Minister to write to the Executive Office and request that the matter is dealt with immediately. The First Minister, the deputy First Minister and the Education Minister can be assured that we will be pursuing this matter with vigour and will not tolerate being fobbed off from one Department to another.”