Funding for primary school education was described as "abysmal" at the Dublin and Glendalough diocesan synods. The principal of Zion Primary School at Rathgar in Dublin, Ms Carol Revington, said: "State funding for primary education is only 63 per cent of the average for primary education within the OECD - 28 countries."
She said funding for second-level education in the State was 78 per cent of the OECD average while at third level it was 100 per cent.
"Unlike our secondary colleagues we cannot charge fees and so we are dependent on State funding and the efforts of generations of parents to fund-raise almost continuously," she said.
Why had the church allowed such a situation to develop, she asked.
What was it "prepared to do to do about this discrimination"? "We need a wake-up call. We need to wake up to the fact that primary children cannot demand these things for themselves."
She said they needed to know "what Education is demanding from Finance in this year's Budget . . . who is lobbying on our behalf".
She asked whether the church had representation in the PPF negotiations "or do we take a last swig out of the bottle when all others have been placated".
The Rev Scott Peoples said at Lucan they had written to the Department of Education a year ago asking that their school building be inspected. They had not received a response. "How could it be possible for such an important area of school life to be allowed meander on like that?" he asked.
He noted that just three civil servants dealt with all school buildings in Ireland.
He also criticised the Department of Education for "communicating by leaks". The first he and others heard about Department ideas for campus-style education was through The Irish Times.
The Department civil servants "must be held accountable for their shortcomings", he said.
The headmaster of The King's Hospital School in Dublin, Mr Harald Meyer, accused the Department of being "singularly unwilling to look to the consequences of ongoing new legislation; its feasibility, its reasonableness and the necessary funding of adequate structures to take on the new load".
The implementation of the Education Act (1998) and the introduction of the Education (Welfare) Act 2000 "devolved responsibility and liability onto school management under the banner of openness, transparency and accountability," he said.
"What used to be settled in the principal's office for better or worse, is ever more likely to end up in the courts. A benevolent commitment has now to be matched by a willingness to train and be prepared for these new responsibilities," he said.
