There are, essentially, two opposing views of the Catholic Church's involvement in education in Ireland. The "authoritarian, oppressive" model vies with the "progressive" model of the church's role. (The latter position has been supported in recent times by, for example, the church's support for the introduction of the RSE programme, and its strong advocacy in the fight against social disadvantage).

There are those who would argue that without the involvement of the Catholic orders in religion, Irish education would have suffered - while others say that it suffered due to this involvement.

"I remember as a child in the 1970s being struck by the arrogance of various churchmen I came across - such as the local parish priest, now long dead, who saw my 10- and 11-year-old classmates as cheap labour. Whenever the mood took him, he would march into the local national school and just inform the teacher that he was removing children from the class for the day to cut his grass, clean his windows, weed the cemetery, or whatever."

Writing in The Irish Times recently, commentator and writer Jim Duffy suggests that the priest saw himself as God's representative in the parish, someone who could not be gainsaid by anyone, least of all the teacher he had appointed.

He goes on to theorise that "in this post-Casey/Smyth/Goldenbridge/Artane/Cleary era, the church is now itself the victim of the same steamrolling judgmentalism it practised in the past."

In 1996, the INTO published the results of a survey into primary teachers' attitudes to religious instruction or education. Of the 819 respondents, 95 per cent taught in schools with Catholic patronage, 3 per cent taught in schools with Protestant patronage and 0.9 per cent taught in schools with a multi-denominational patronage; 0.9 per cent taught in schools with other types of patronage.

At present, teachers are obliged to give religious instruction if they are employed in denominational or multi-denominational schools. More than half of the teachers surveyed said that primary teachers should not be obliged to give religious instruction. One in six teachers indicated that they thought the time devoted to religious ceremonies and sacraments was excessive.

When it came to school ethos, 43 per cent were in favour of a denominational ethos, while 48 per cent said they would like their schools to present a multi-denominational ethos and 8 per cent wanted their schools to present a nondenominational ethos.

Opinion was roughly equally divided when it came to the question of discrimination by school authorities if teachers were to express a preference not to teach religious instruction. Of the 54 teachers who indicated that they had opted out of teaching religion, 13 per cent said they had been discriminated against in respect of applications for principalship or other jobs.

One teacher - himself a non-believer - has told Education and Living how he, his wife and three children, attend Mass each Sunday in his local church, taking care to sit in the one of the first five pews. This, he says, could significantly increase his chances of impressing the parish priest - thereby enhancing his chances of obtaining a principalship.

On the issue of school ownership, one-third of respondents to the INTO survey said the churches should continue to own schools where they own the property, while 39 per cent said they shouldn't; 27 per cent didn't know. A majority of 70 per cent felt that the churches should relinquish their numerical majority on boards of management in favour of equality of representation between the partners in education.

The old pattern of primary school purchase and control was that the "community" - which was in almost all cases synonymous with the parish - bought the site for a new school, and hence nominated the patron, usually the bishop. He in turn usually had his own appointee (usually the parish priest) as manager. The patrons then had to fund up to 15 per cent of all building work.

In a move described by the Minister as the "most significant change in the State funding of school capital projects since independence", it was announced, last January, that the State would offer to pay to provide the full costs of sites for all new schools at both primary and second level. In addition, the level of local contribution required for building projects was reduced and capped at a low level.

Between 1986 and 1997, 71 new national schools were granted recognition by the Department of Education. These included two new traditional Catholic national schools, one Muslim school, 56 gaelscoileanna and 13 multi-denominational schools. The Minister noted that the changes would have particular impact on the multi-denominational schools movement which has often struggled to meet the high cost of land and buildings in and close to urban centres.