The three-day forum on school patronage at the Department of Education enters its final day today.

Educationalists were told yesterday it is not possible under current legislation for a school in the Republic to be religion-free.

Speaking at a public hearing before the forum on patronage and pluralism in the primary sector in Dublin yesterday, Prof John Coolahan said that “it would appear the State is prohibited” from allowing non-religious schools.

Prof Coolahan is chairman of the advisory group which this week has been questioning in open session stakeholders in the primary schools sector on submissions they have made on diversity of patronage.

He made the observation while questioning a delegation from the Irish National Teachers Organisation.

Speaking to the media later he said since 1926 the rule in this State was that religious instruction had been “asserted as part of the school day”. It was stipulated that religion and the spiritual “should inform and vivify the whole world of the school”.

Áine Hyland, who had been involved with the Dalkey School project in the 1970s, explained to reporters present the reason why that school was described as “multi-denominational” as opposed to “non-denominational” was because of Department of Education insistence that it comply with this rule.

Yesterday, the second day of the hearings which began on Wednesday, six further groups appeared before the advisory group of Prof Coolahan, Dr Caroline Hussey and Fionnuala Kilfeather. The groups were Educate Together, an Foras Pátrúnachta na Scoileanna Lán-Ghaelige, Gaelscoileanna Teoranta, the INTO, the Islamic Foundation of Ireland and the Irish Vocational Education Association.

Opening proceedings Prof Coolahan said when it came to a plurality of patrons in the primary sector, there was “general recognition we have a problem . . . which is not unanswerable”. It was something “we do not want to leave unattended as it could lead to conflict and damage in local communities. It’s not what Ireland needs now.”

In his responses to questions from the advisory group Paul Rowe, chief executive of Educate Together, said that “in our experience very, very few people in Ireland want their children educated in an environment without a belief system.

“Our experience is that it is an absolutely minimal demand in the Irish context.”

However what parents wanted for their children “had to be heard”, he suggested, adding that such preference “has never been measured properly in the Irish context”. Such a survey of pre-school children would allow the State plan accordingly.

Where Educate Together was concerned, he said, parental demand was such that, as an example, in the Portobello area of Dublin 300 children were now seeking places where only 60 were available in their schools.

He agreed with Dr Hussey that an independent preference body, with a CAO-type role, “could address the question of enrolment”.

It could operate under a local authority but would have to be independent of any patron of a school, he said.

“All parents in receipt of child benefit could receive a second form for children under three years” on which they “could mark their preference 1,2,3...”

The key dynamic in the sector was “parental choice”, he said. He also believed that “as a policy the State should own the schools and allocate leasing arrangements according to demand”.

Educate Together had “no interest in acquiring sites or buildings” and had found “other patron bodies extremely accommodating” when it came to sharing properties.

“The media perception of turf wars (between patrons) is a mistaken one, in my view,” he said.