One of the Catholic Church’s leading spokesmen on education has said he has “serious problems” with the recent media coverage of a new Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) survey into religious education.

Speaking to the Irish Catholic, Fr Michael Drumm, the head of the Catholic Schools Partnership has said that the suggestion made in media reports that only 49 per cent of primary schools teachers are willing to teach religion put forward by several media outlets is “completely false”.

“[T]he media coverage would lead one to misinterpret the information presented in the survey,” he said.

According to Fr Drumm, a close analysis of the survey of the 363 primary teachers shows that approximately 90pc of teachers are open to teaching religion as only about 10 pc are unwilling to do so.

Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Fr Drumm said the survey is a “strong endorsement of denominational schools” and “shows no evidence of a need for non-denominational schools in Ireland”.

Reports on the survey also suggested that primary school teachers were spending more than the time alloted to religious education to prepare children for their First Communion and Confirmation.

Some reports alleged that in some cases an extra nine hours of teaching time a week was being used to ready children for these sacraments.

However, Fr Drumm said he was “absolutely certain” this was not the case. The time allocation suggested for religious instruction by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) is 2.5 hours per week.

Fr Drumm said he was “absolutely certain no pupil in the State was receiving more than 2.5 hours of religious education in Catholic schools”. “Naturally in the sacramental years the number of hours devoted to religious formation will be increased but balanced out across the other years,” he said.

This comes after a group of Labour TDs and Senators published a Bill to water down Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act.

Section 37 is vital to protecting the ethos and identity of denominational schools, because it allows them to take “reasonable” action against employees who undermine their ethos.

The Government has confirmed that it will be taking up the Bill. Speaking in the Seanad on Wednesday, Minister of State Kathleen Lynch said that the Government would use the office of the Attorney General to ensure that the Bill passes Constitutional muster.

Commenting on the Bill, Fr Drumm said “section 37 is a key component of employment law with regard to denominational schools and any changes proposed must balance the rights of all concerned”