Minister happy to see students able to wear GAA tops in Lisneal College

The Minister was addressing a meeting of the Stormont Education Committee and said the pupils - from other schools in the city - appeared comfortable and he thought that was great.

During the evidence session - at which he outlined his Educational Priorities as Minister - Mr O’Dowd commented: “I want to see schools working together, sharing services, and pupils moving between schools for a number of subjects.

“A couple of weeks ago, I visited Lisneal College in Derry, which is a controlled school. I walked into a classroom where I saw three kids sitting wearing GAA tops. I thought that was great.

“They came from a different school, and were sitting there comfortably, studying for their A levels.

“That was community relations in practice, I thought.

“All the glossy documents that you will ever read will never give you that.

“Those children were as comfortable as anything sitting there.

“The teacher was going through their A level studies with them, and children from that school travelled to other schools in Derry as well.

“That is happening across the north; we are seeing schools exchanging pupils for various subjects and sharing services through area learning communities.”

During the hearing Sinn Féin MLA for Fermanagh South Tyrone Phil Flanagan quipped that the pupils wearing GAA tops in Lisneal must not have been wearing Tyrone jerseys otherwise they would not have been just as comfortable.

“You have spoken about children in Derry wearing Gaelic tops. They obviously were not Tyrone jerseys or they would not be sitting there too comfortably,,” Mr Flanagan said.

To laughter, DUP MLA Mervyn Storey asked: “There are no community relations in that community?”

“Definitely not,” replied Mr Flanagan.