O’Dowd peddling nonsense with EU argument
15 May 2012
TUV Leader and former MEP Jim Allister has accused the Education Minister of talking nonsense in an Assembly reply by suggesting our present enrolment priority in local schools for Northern Ireland children could be contrary to an EU obligation, arising under the Treaty on the Functioning of Europe (TFEU), popularly referred to as ‘the Lisbon Treaty’.
With O’Dowd seeking to remove the legislative protection requiring such priority in NI schools for NI children – in pursuit of his vision for cross-border education – Jim Allister had asked him an Assembly Question which produced this answer:-
“I am studying the residency criteria. The current residency criterion may not be in keeping with current concepts of mobility and cross border flexibility and are unsympathetic to the way families in the border area live their lives and access services, including education.
“The residency policy may also be contrary to EU obligations under the Treaty on the Functioning of Europe (TFEU) and also the relevant provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union such as Article 14 (right to education) and Article 24 (rights of the child).
“It would therefore be my intention to bring forward proposals in due course to amend the relevant legislation to remove any such barriers”.
In a statement Jim Allister said, “For Minister O’Dowd to peddle the nonsense that the Lisbon Treaty might prohibit local preference for indigenous children is beyond belief and demonstrates either a total failure to understand the Treaty or a malevolent attempt to call in aid something which is without relevance.
“Under TFEU education is the responsibility of Member States, not Brussels. The height of the EU’s competency is, as Art 165 says, to encourage cooperation between member states. But this comes no where close to any EU compulsion for equality of access to NI schools for ROI children.
“Patently, O’Dowd is clutching at straws, as with his pretence that Art 14 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights – the right to education – requires such cross-border schooling. It does no such thing. Our legislative protection, requiring that NI schools give priority to pupils resident in NI, is not in conflict with any EU provision and I trust no Unionist on the Executive, or elsewhere, will fall for such nonsense.
“The obligation of Northern Ireland taxpayers is to educate our own children. That correctly is our priority; our schools are not here to meet the needs of the Republic, but, as ever, Sinn Fein in government is doing everything it can to obliterate the border.”
