The time set aside for the teaching of religion in Irish schools may become ‘discretionary’ under new proposals to be published next month. The proposals, contained in a National Council for Curriculum and Assessment report on primary school education look set to recommend that a planned religion, beliefs and ethics class be incorporated into the wider core curriculum as opposed to becoming a separate class. Thus areas of religion could, for example, be covered in a geography class. The resultant overlap with areas such as faith formation means that a school could have the flexibility to decide how much time to devote to this. While the Education Act (1998) protects the right of schools to set aside reasonable time in each school day for subjects relating to the school’s ethos, it does not specify how much time should be set aside for this subject, allowing for flexibility on the part of schools.