An event occurred late last week which may spell the death knell of the current system through which our children are educated in national schools.
A majority of the members of the board of management of Drumbaragh National School near Kells in Co Meath decided to resign. These members are ordinary parents and representatives of their community, all freely volunteering their time to help out at the local school.
Their concern is that if something goes wrong in the school, they may become individually legally liable and could end up exposed to protracted and costly litigation as a result. A number of them had sought independent legal advice, which confirmed that by serving their community in this way, they were putting themselves (and their assets) at considerable risk.
The members of the board of Drumbaragh National School, and indeed of every other primary school in the country, have good reason to be afraid. As we know, both Minister for Education Mary Hanafin and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern have repeated in the Dáil over the past weeks that the State has no legal liability for any damage done to children in schools. They refer to recent court cases which have confirmed this.
This culminated last week in the interesting spectacle of Ms Hanafin appearing on RTÉ News announcing that she was the "boss" of schools in the country, while explaining in the next breath that, in fact, she had no responsibility in law if anything goes wrong and a child is injured.
As the Minister has made clear, it is the board of management of each local school which will take the fall in these cases.
The State has gone even further. The Chief State Solicitors Office has kindly provided the following advice to those who seek to hold the Department of Education responsible for injuries which they sustained as children.
Writing to victims of child sexual abuse at school, it stated that "it would appear to us that the more appropriate defendants in a case involving alleged wrongdoing on the part of any teacher in a primary school would be . . . the school management and the school patron".
In the overwhelming majority of national schools, the patron is the local Catholic bishop. The fact that the State is actively encouraging people to sue bishops should make for interesting conversation at the next round of meetings between the Government and Catholic Church leaders.
As far as boards of management are concerned, the Taoiseach has been at some pains to convince us that individual members cannot be held personally liable for any failings. In the Dáil last week, he stated that "the Education Act provides that the individual members who serve and who do a good job on boards, have protection".
The key phrase here is "who do a good job on boards". The Education Act 1998 expresses it thus: "No action shall lie against a member of a board in respect of anything done by that member in good faith."
An obvious question, however, arises: who exactly determines if a member acts in good faith or does a good job? The answer, of course, is that the courts do. There is absolutely nothing to prevent someone bringing a case against an individual member of a school board, asking the court to determine whether or not he or she acted in good faith or did a good job.
Consequently, the bona fide protection provided by the 1998 Act is highly limited and in no way could be construed as protecting individual members of boards from serious litigation.
Ah, but never fear, insurance is here, the Catholic School Managers Association have said. Everyone is covered, we are assured, there is nothing to worry about.
Allianz insures the great majority of national schools in the country. A reading of the myriad of exclusions under its policies is unlikely to give comfort to any volunteer member of a board of management.
Indemnity is provided in certain circumstances, while in others it is not. For instance, accidental injury protection specifically excludes any criminal act. Boards and schools appear to be covered in certain circumstances where sexual abuse may have occurred but are clearly not covered in others.
We have heard much from the Taoiseach over the past years about the value of social capital and the importance of voluntary effort within communities. His pet project, the Taskforce on Active Citizenship, produced a report last week advocating a range of measures to enhance our individual commitment to society.
One of the ways that tens of thousands of us every year serve our communities is by volunteering to assist the State in providing education for our children.
It is the height of irony that the present Government is doing such terminal damage to this important voluntary engagement by ordinary citizens through its myopic determination to escape all responsibility for the national education system.
After all, who will ever again volunteer for anything, if by doing so the State will happily hang you out to dry?