Patronage of primary schools in Ireland is down the agenda of parents' actual concerns about their child's education, a leading Catholic Church representative has said.
Speaking at the publication of research into parental understandings of school patronage by the Catholic Schools Partnership, chairman of the organisation, Fr Michael Drumm, said that the issue of patronage should not be overstated.
"We need to be careful about the whole patronage question and that it is not hyped up to such a level that at a national level it becomes the key issue on the agenda" he said.
"In our research, it clearly emerges that patronage is not at the top of the agenda of parental concern looking to the future. It matters, but when you push parents to keep talking about schools, this does not come to the top of their agenda at all."
The partnership's findings come from qualitative research involving discussions with parents selected by schools that were chosen from what were deemed to be areas representative of the country.
Earlier this year, Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn indicated that 50 per cent of primary schools under the patronage of the Catholic Church could be transferred to other patrons.
At the time, he said he was basing that figure on research among parents carried out by the church.
Fr Drumm initially responded by saying that a transfer figure of ten per cent was more realistic. Today however, he said that it was foolish to try and put a number on the amount of schools where a transfer of patronage would be appropriate.
"Nobody knows the outcome of this process. You can come up with any percentage you want - nobody knows the outcome in any particular school never mind the overall percentage. This is a complex process."
Fr Drumm emphasised that any decisions made, need to be made at a local level and in consultation with the schools and communities affected. He advised against any national policy of patronage transfers which he warned could "antagonise the very communities that you might like to encourage to consider change."
"The one thing you can not underestimate in this whole process is - everything is so local, localism bedevils this in one sense, but localism is so important" he said.
He added that there was "a legitimate source of disagreement" within leaders of catholic education about whether to strengthen the catholic identity of schools, by imposing more religious education, or to become more inclusive to all groups, which would likely dilute the amount of catholic teaching in the school.