More than half (61 per cent) of Irish Times readers do not agree with plans to introduce new classes about religion into primary schools, according to an online poll.

Fears over “curriculum overload” have emerged as one of the key concerns in a consultation process over controversial plans to introduce classes about religion into primary schools.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), the State's advisory body on education, has received a record-breaking volume of responses from parents, teachers and school bodies over new religion, beliefs and ethics classes.

The planned classes would be separate to existing faith-based classes in denominational schools, which typically take up about half an hour of the school day.

Of 1558 readers who took part inthe online poll, 61 per cent answered No while 31 per cent answered Yes. The question was :Do you agree with plans to introduce new classes about religion into primary schools?

The ’Irish Times Poll of the Day’ was a self-selecting survey of readers of irishtimes.com which ran from 12pm-6pm.