A prominent writer has called for schools and hospitals to be taken from the Church and handed to the State. When parents have been asked in various parts of the country do they want their local Catholic school handed to a new patron body, they usually vote no.

In response to the RTÉ One documentary ‘Stolen’, about the historic treatment of unmarried pregnant women in Ireland, Barbara Scully asked in The Irish Independent why “we still live in a country where religious orders play such a dominant role in our schools?”

Noting the large number of schools under Catholic patronage and operating with a Catholic ethos, she said, “religious orders own much of the land on which our schools and hospitals stand”.

She added: “If we really are a progressive, inclusive, equal country, we need to remove religious orders from state infrastructure now.”

With a general election coming soon, she told her readers: “Our politicians need to know our independence will only be complete when our education and health systems are free too”.

Previously, a former Government advisor, Fergus Finlay said religious congregations in Ireland should be dissolved.

Last year, the Irish author, John Banville, described the Catholic Church as an “evil” institution that should be “abolished”.