Local referenda are expected to be held in each area where the Catholic Church agrees to relinquish control of its 
schools, Minister for Education, Batt O’Keeffe said yesterday.
The Irish Times report that Department of Education and Church officials are continuing to work on identifying areas where the Catholic Church is prepared to hand over control of school management to other patrons.
The department is using new technology to identify areas where there will be rapid population growth and those where a better mix of patrons is required. The Catholic Church controls more than 90 per cent of primary schools in the country.
Speaking at the annual conference of the Irish Primary Principals Network (IPPN), Mr O’Keeffe said the department and the church were working together in the process. But he said nothing would be done without full consultation with school communities, which would probably involve a plebiscite to test local views.
Discussions would also have to take place with alternative patrons.
The multidenominational group Educate Together – which the Minister praised for its management of primary schools in the Dáil this week – is one group that could take over management of the schools.
However, local vocational education committees could also have a key role. Two new State-run community primary schools have been established on a pilot basis under the aegis of the Co Dublin VEC.
Separately yesterday, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin supported Cardinal Seán Brady’s defence of the role of the Catholic Church in education. He said that if parents wanted to send their children to a Catholic school, then it should have the right to Government funding if the school complied with the State curriculum.
Speaking at the Davos economic summit in Switzerland, Dr Martin said that religious schools of any persuasion should be State-funded if they met standards applied in other schools.
“I have no difficulty with Islamic schools, but the teachers have to be of the same calibre as teachers in any other school in the country and the Department of Education has a responsibility to make that happen,” he said.
Dr Martin said that the difficulty with this debate was that it was starting from an anachronistic position where 95 per cent of primary schools were run by the Catholic Church.
“I have no interest in being a manager of a school which is Catholic in name – that is not my business. I would like to see Catholic schools that are genuine Catholic communities for parents who want them,” he said.
He said that he wasn’t sure that “a simple monolithic structure” in education was the best.