One school principal has suggested the school divestment programme is 'doomed to failure'.
It comes as parents of primary and pre-school children are to be surveyed by the Department of Education as part of efforts to encourage more Catholic schools to divest to multi-denominational patronage.
The Programme for Government includes a commitment to achieve a target of at least 400 multi-denominational primary schools by 2030.
Currently there are around 150 across the country.
Simon Lewis, Principal of Carlow Educate Together and host of the 'If I were the Minister for Education' podcast, told The Hard Shoulder success is hard to measure.
"This story goes back to 2011, so nearly 12 years ago, when it was first touted that Catholic school would divest a number of their schools to multi-denominational providers," he said.
"In that 12 years, less than 30 schools have actually been divested.
"Of the 150 or so multi-denominational schools that are available to families, most of them were new schools.
"So to reach a target of 400 would require them to divest... 26 a year to reach a very, very small target of 400 schools.
"[This] would actually be a total then of 89% of Catholic schools to 83% of Catholic schools in the country.
"Even if they reach their target it's not much of a success."
'Not a religious problem'
Mr Lewis said there are several reasons the approach isn't working.
"The whole system itself is doomed to failure," he said.
"It hasn't been working for the last 12 years, so why should it continue working?
"The reason it's not working, I suppose, is that an areas been identified and people are told, 'You've such and such number of Catholic schools: one of them needs to change'.
"I don't think the problem is particularly a religious one.
"I think it's a problem with pitting commumites against each other; 'which school is going to have to changeover to this sort of unknown entity when things are kind of going OK as far as the majority are concerned'.
"I suppose the second part of the problem is the majority of people are quite happy to send their kids to their local school, and the religious part of it doesn't seem to affect the majority of people.
"The problem is it's affecting a minority of people quite troublingly," he added.
