"Catholic schools are most welcoming of people of different faiths. This is not a reason for maintaining patronage of most of the primary schools in the country, when more and more people want something else." – Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin

CPSMA AGM told that deletion of Rule 68 “may have unwittingly edged us closer to a situation whereby the State is no longer providing for education through a plurality of providers, but is itself providing a monolithic-type state education”.

The debate on Catholic primary schools has focused more on ideology than on reality: Fr Tom Deenihan.

The real demand in Ireland is not for secular schools but for school places and providing adequate places is the responsibility, not of the Catholic Church, but of the State.