Minister for Education Richard Bruton is set to commence key provisions of the School Admissions Act on Wednesday which will prevent Catholic schools from giving enrolment priority to baptised children for the 2019/2020 school year.

Minority faiths, such as the Church of Ireland, jewish and muslim schools, will be allowed to prioritise members of their religion in order to protect their ethos in cases where they are over-subscribed.

Mr Bruton said that exclusion had been introduced to help ensure children of minority faiths could still access a school of their own religion.

However, some schools who are mid-way through processing their admissions for the coming year say the short notice of the change is set to cause “chaos”.

Ultan Mac Mathúna, principal of Holy Cross primary school in Dundrum, Dublin, said: “We’ve been left in the dark as to the application of this rule. It will cause chaos. We can’t give parents a straight answer. Changes to admissions require a decision by the board, and need to be approved by the patron and published.”