Paddy Monahan: Yes. Move faith formation outside of school hours and let children opt in
Divestment has been an abject failure. Moving religious faith formation outside school hours on an opt-in basis is the answer to the religious discrimination that runs deep in Irish education. It is a solution that respects the rights of all and offends no one.
Teaching children about different world religions in an objective, balanced way is a laudable aim. Promoting a single, unquestioned belief system to children is not. Almost all Irish primary schools do the latter.
The grip the Catholic Church has on Irish taxpayer-funded education has no place in a modern democracy. It controls 88.3 per cent of primary schools (other religions control 6.2 per cent). A recent survey by the Department of Education shows that 40 per cent of parents of children in religious-run schools would prefer if their school was multi-denominational. The true demand for change is almost certainly far higher: Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton has not released, from the same survey, the figures from tens of thousands of parents of preschool children. She also omitted the responses of parents with children attending multi-denominational schools.
In a typical Catholic classroom of 25 children, the parents of 10 would rather they were elsewhere. However, this doesn’t begin to illustrate the problem. It is how these children are treated that is so wrong.
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Every day in Catholic schools, countless children from non-Catholic families are ignored, stigmatised and sidelined during religion lessons. The Employment Equality Act threatens dismissal for any teacher who “undermines the religious ethos” of a school.
Hours a week are spent on formal Catholic faith formation – almost as much time as is spent on history, geography and science combined. Despite a constitutional right not to attend religious instruction children who are “opted-out” remain in the classroom absorbing every word of instruction. At religious ceremonies and impromptu visits from the local priest they may be herded together, away from their Catholic classmates.
During the Communion and Confirmation years, weeks and months are spent twiddling their thumbs while their classmates learn religious songs and practice for the ceremonies.
Many teachers feel this is mainly done for parents – presumably not all of whom are devout Catholics themselves. This is reflected in a 2025 INTO survey that showed 78 per cent of teachers felt schools should have no role in Communion and Confirmation preparation. In the same survey just 33 per cent said: “I teach religion willingly.”
Divestment has been government policy for 15 years. Only 32 schools have switched to multi-denominational patronage since 2011 – more than 2,700 primary schools remain in Catholic patronage. The last government aimed to reach 400 multi-denominational schools by 2030, around 12 per cent of all schools. This Government has abandoned even that modest aim. Yet, despite the evidence of 15 years of failure, it has fallen back on divestment as the answer to the clamour for change identified in its own survey.
Few people interrogate what a “successful” divestment policy would look like – probably because it is logistically impossible. Assuming – when preschool parents are included – more than 50 per cent of parents want non-religious education, then it is nonsensical to construct an entire education system around religious difference, dividing communities and separating children based on religion. Divestment is not an inclusive policy.
Moving faith formation outside school hours would mean parents who want religious education and sacramental preparation for their children can still have it – by actively choosing it outside school. Equally, parents who do not wish their children to face daily exclusion and unwanted religious instruction, as is currently the case, will have this wish respected. It is a win-win and is cost neutral. Is there any decent argument against moving faith formation outside school hours?
Naughton announced only some survey results at INTO congress last week, but human rights should not be based on surveys. Former president Michael D Higgins said at the same event: “Policies which marginalise, discriminate or exclude at an early stage do not teach our children the language of equality, justice and democracy.”
Paddy Monahan is a teacher, Social Democrats councillor and policy officer with Education Equality
Alan Hynes-Cendrzak: No. Catholic teaching in Catholic schools gives students a firm basis to encounter other beliefs
Religious education is about providing a holistic lens through which students can navigate a pluralistic world. Its value lies in fostering religious literacy, spiritual maturity and, for those active in a faith community, a sense of belonging, moving beyond mere facts to engage the head, heart and hands.
By exploring big questions of meaning and purpose, and faith responses to wellbeing, religious education creates space for students to develop their own identity while cultivating empathy for the other.
In Catholic schools, religious education is delivered through the Catholic faith, giving students firm ground on which to engage in dialogue and encounter with other beliefs and world views.
Campaigners from a secular perspective will argue that it would be better either to have no religious education at all or to make it “objective”. The latter is a philosophical absurdity. It rests on the secular assumption that on religion or ethics a neutral ground can be found. It cannot. No such ground exists. Education is always informed by an anthropological and ethical point of view. Denominational schools are clear and open about theirs.
It is also said that only a secular, “neutral” space can provide an education system capable of contributing to a cohesive society in a country marked by a diversity of world views.
But this is often presented as self-evident truth when it is nothing of the kind. A school does not become neutral simply by removing religious education from the day. It remains informed by a view of the human person and of what constitutes human flourishing.
The new primary curriculum framework is right to recognise religion and ethics as integral parts of the curriculum. In Catholic schools, work is under way to develop resources that expand what has previously been taught on other faiths and belief systems. Respectful encounter and dialogue with other views and beliefs is central to understanding, social cohesion and the common good.
That wider context matters in Ireland. The constitutional imperative to provide a plurality of choice for parents in the primary sector is fully acknowledged and recognises the preference of many parents for alternatives to denominational education. The Catholic patrons have long supported the Department of Education’s initiatives to secure the divestment of schools into other patronage. That support is grounded in respect for the role of parents as the primary educators of their children.
But the process of divesting school patronage has been frustratingly slow. While it may seem convenient to some, the answer is not to impose a solution on communities. At a national level, there is broad support for divestment – however, support from local communities has often not been forthcoming. Often parents have wished to retain their local school under Catholic patronage.
Some campaigners, frustrated by that reality, now seek another route. Having failed to persuade many local communities to change patronage, they argue that faith schools should be stripped of the ability to give full expression to their ethos. The first step in that campaign is to remove religious education from the school day. It is not a serious answer to pluralism but an attempt to impose a settlement that most communities have not chosen.
If parents wish for other forms of provision, those should be developed. But where parents continue to choose Catholic schools, the answer is not to hollow out the very thing they are choosing.
There is still hope for divestment as a way to assist in providing plurality of choice, but it must be grounded in subsidiarity and partnership. The State needs to invest in consultation with communities and in identifying and removing barriers to divestment. The Catholic education sector is ready to play our part in this, but this will require an authentic partnership approach by the State, founded in a shared commitment to the common good.
Alan Hynes-Cendrzak is chief executive of the Catholic Education Partnership
