The National Parents Council Primary has called for a debate on the teaching of religion in schools.
The chief executive of the council, Ms Fionnuala Kilfeather, said many children of non-Catholic backgrounds are having their constitutional rights infringed by being forced to take Catholic religious instruction,
She said that while the Republic is increasingly multi-cultural, many parents have no choice of school because there is only one in their communities.
If religious bodies could not respect a multi-cultural Ireland by offering parents a choice of religious education, then the State, and not religious bodies, should be running the schools, she asserted.
The council was reacting to a decision yesterday by the former principal at the centre of a row over the teaching of religion in Dunboyne, Co Meath, to withdraw his case from the Employment Appeals Tribunal.
Mr Tomas Ó Dulaing, who is now principal of a multi-denominational school in Lucan, Co Dublin, appealed to the tribunal after he was dismissed last August from Scoil Thulach na nÓg, in Dunboyne.
Mr Ó Dulaing had publicly challenged the policy of An Foras, which was that all children must sit in on all religious instruction classes, whether they be Catholic or Church of Ireland.
In the Dunboyne Gaelscoil dispute, Mr Ó Dulaing successfully got the parents, teachers and the board of the school to agree on a plan of reconciliation. This was that religious instruction would be limited in the classroom to core Christianity, with children preparing for First Holy Communion outside school hours.
However, this plan was rejected by An Foras. Today at the Gaelscoil, Church of Ireland children are being forced to sit in on religious preparations for First Holy Communion.
"The teachers are doing their best to implement this policy," said Mr John Carr, general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation.
At the time of Mr Ó Dulaing's dismissal, the INTO had defended him and demanding among other things the establishment of a convention on interdenominational education to examine all the issues.
Significant progress has been made towards the establishment of this convention, which will offer "a new beginning in Scoil Thulach na nÓg in Dunboyne", said Mr Carr.