The Minister for Education has been kite flying again. Does he expect to be taken seriously, asks Olwyn Enright TD?

It is late summer, the school year is about to begin and the Minister for Education and Science indulges in his favourite hobby: kite flying. Last year he terrified parents and students all over the country with his proposal to reintroduce third-level fees. This year he proposes no longer paying the salaries of teachers at fee-paying schools.

Perhaps Noel Dempsey now thinks that fee-paying schools are an easy target and that his proposal is a populist one. But the proposal is ill considered and counterproductive. Last November the Minister said he did not favour stopping payments to teachers in fee-paying schools, as the schools would simply move into the free education system and the taxpayer would end up paying for them anyway. So how can we take these proposals seriously?

Ireland has 746 post-primary schools, of which 59 are fee-paying. They include 1,600 teachers and about 26,000 students and receive €77.5 million in subsidies from the Department of Education and Science, €68.5 million of which goes on teachers' salaries. If the Minister stops paying these salaries, then many schools, particularly at the lower end of the fee spectrum, will be left in a precarious position. Schools will have three options. Firstly, they can join the free education scheme to enable them to remain open. Secondly, they can close, forcing students to go elsewhere to be educated - probably to non-fee-paying schools. Thirdly, they can increase fees hugely. All of these options will push students into public sector, where the taxpayer will pay for them anyhow, a fact openly admitted by the Minister.

Fee-paying schools provide two significant savings to the Department. These schools receive no funding under the school building programme. Neither the upkeep of school buildings nor the development of science, sports and library facilities is paid for by the State. Nor, unlike schools in the free education scheme, do fee-paying schools receive a capitation grant or monies under the school service support fund.

In a worst case scenario, if all students from fee-paying schools entered the free education scheme it would cost the State at least €809 million a year in grants for capitation and through the support fund. And schools can apply for other grants under the free education scheme, so this amount could be considerably higher.

Should fee-paying schools join the free education scheme, then the State would also be responsible for their upkeep. Noel Dempsey admitted last November on Tonight With Vincent Browne, on RTÉ Radio 1, that if more schools joined the free education scheme it would put the building programme "up the creek".

The Minister has already driven the building programme quite a long way up the creek. It can deliver no adequate solutions to the current building backlog. Students are working in deplorable conditions. Adding more schools to the school building programme will heap further pressure on a scheme already years behind.

The Minister appears oblivious to the disproportionately negative impact that this change would have on schools with a minority religious ethos.

When the free secondary education system was established, in 1966, it was recognised that a scheme for free education that met the needs of the majority would not necessarily meet the needs of the minority. Since then the State has awarded a grant to the Secondary Education Committee, a combined grouping of the Church of Ireland, Methodists, Presbyterians and Quakers, which distributes these funds to pupils based upon their means. Many Protestant schools have students from disadvantaged backgrounds who receive assistance from the committee. By removing this funding, and the payment of teachers' salaries, the State may force these schools to close. Will the Government deny students their right to be taught in a school of their own ethos?

Pupils at second level will continue to need teachers, whether or not they are paid for by the State. But by ceasing to pay the salaries of teachers at fee-paying schools, the State will incur considerable costs in other ways. The current quid pro quo, whereby the State pays the salaries and the fee-paying schools look after other costs, would change. Also, teachers at fee-paying schools have the same rights and entitlements of employment as other teachers. The State cannot sign them away on a whim.

The Minister has been vocal on tackling disadvantage in our education system. Yet with all his rhetoric he has not achieved greater educational participation for those he claims he wants to bring into the system.

The Minister loves to be seen to be "doing something", and fee-paying schools might seem a soft target to distract from the other failings of the Department. It is now mid-August, however, kite-flying season is nearly over and the Minister needs to do some real work, so every child will have equal access to the very best education.

• Olwyn Enright TD is Fine Gael's spokeswoman on education and science