Less than 40pc of parents have responded to a Department of Education pilot survey as to their preferred choice of patron for Catholic primary schools, new figures suggest.

The online survey was carried out in Arklow, Castlebar, Tramore, Trim and Whitehall in Dublin.

The actual results of the surveys will not be known until next week, the Irish Times reports.

Last week, a report on RTE Radio News suggested that there was only very limited awareness of the survey in Castlebar, which was one of the five areas to be surveyed.  

The surveys, which were conducted online, are part of a process to ascertain the demand for schools run by patrons other than the Catholic Church.

Despite the low turnout, the department insisted there was “an encouraging level of interest from parents”.  

Last week, RTE Education Correspondent Emma O’Kelly said that there was a lack of awareness of the process.

She said parents were very loyal to there existing schools with only a “weak” appetite for change. There was “not really much of an appetite for change,” Ms O’Kelly reported.

The survey process was announced last month, but the manner in which it was begun was criticised by the Catholic Church’s leading spokesperson on schools.

Chairperson of the Irish Catholic Schools Partnership Fr Michael Drumm has said that an online survey of parents might suffer from “mass non-participation” and therefore would not be properly representative.

Fr Drumm said that he would have preferred a paper based questionnaire sent to all parents and that it was now up to the Department of Education to prove that the online survey will be robust and transparent.

Fr Drumm said that “the real likelihood is of mass non-participation”.

He stressed that that this survey was not a plebiscite or a vote, but is instead a means of determining how many “real parents with real names, real addresses and real children” wanted additional forms of patronage.

“Let’s say 50 activist parents, perfectly understandably go online and they’re mainly active for a new type of school, for a VEC school or an Educate Together school or whatever it might be.

“So the outcome is that 50 parents all vote, all express that they want an additional form of patronage. That does not give us the result of a vote, this is not a plebiscite,” Fr Drumm said.

“What that tells us is that there are 50 people in this area who want this type of school, those who don’t participate, we would have to conclude are actually content with the present situation,” he added.

Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn said some primary schools could be under new patronage by next September if enough parents demand it.

The responses in the five pilot areas is as follows:

Arklow: 384 responses, representing 706 of the 1,965 pupils in primary schools in the area.

Castlebar: 465 responses, representing 932 of the 2,261 pupils in the area.

Tramore: 276 responses , representing 563 of the 1,644 pupils in the area.

Trim: 300 responses, representing 588 of the 1,540 pupils in the area.

Whitehall: 546 responses, representing 987 of the 2,449 pupils in the area.