Ireland is in a "post-backlash" era, where parents no longer care about the religious patronage of their children's schools.

That's according to Newstalk Breakfast host Ciara Kelly, who was speaking after new figures showed there has been a steady decrease in Catholic Primary school enrolments since 2018.

The Department of Education figures show that multi-denominational enrolments have continued to rise steadily in the same period.

Ciara said religion is "not on most parents' agenda" when it comes to choosing schools.

"After all the clerical sex abuse was revealed, I think there was a massive backlash for years," she said.

"People were revolted by some of the stuff that the Church did – but I think we are [now] post-backlash."

'A good school'

Parents are more concerned about a school's reputation than religious affiliation, favouring high academic results and low bullying levels, according to Ciara.

"I think, if parents say, ‘This is a good school locally’, [religion] is not something that people care about," she said.

"The new schools being opened and built around the country are very often nondenominational, and that's the right thing to do because it gives parents a little bit of choice.

"But I think a good school, a decent school, is what we want."

'Ignorance'

Fellow presenter Jonathan Healy said parents are choosing "blissful ignorance" when it comes to the patronage of a school.

"They're just happy that their child is in a school, particularly if they're in an area where there is a pressure on school places, and the denomination of that school becomes less relevant," he said.

"It's all a ball of smoke because the second your child walks through the door of a primary school, they are taught religion anyway.

"Two and a half hours a week is set aside for the teaching of religion, whether that be the Catholic religion, or, if it is a multi-denominational school, they'll teach about all the other religions and parents are blissfully ignorant about that."

Change

Jonathan argued that parents are glad for structures like the Catholic Church to exist within schools, as it gives them the opportunity to be less involved in the community.

"It's a great way of saying, 'You know what, I don't want to be involved in the running of that in my local community, we'll let [the] Father take over the control of the Board of Management there'," he said.

"Parents get to skip the boring long meetings that otherwise they wouldn't want to get involved in.

"There are many reasons why it remains the same, I can't see changing anytime soon."