"Political figures" have been criticised by the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, for blaming the church when it came to the lack of provision of school places for children.
He also said his desire to foster pluralism in education was being frustrated "by slowness on the part of others in developing the appropriate structures for such pluralist patronage".
Speaking at a conference in Dublin's Mater Dei Institute last night, he also said that the churches were planning to share buildings for prayer and worship in some developing areas of Dublin.
It is understood the four main Christian denominations plan to do so in the new suburb of Adamstown.
Archbishop Martin said: "We are looking at the possibility of having some shared places of Christian presence - including an oratory/chapel - for the main Christian confessions in the commercial and civic centres of such developments.
"This does not, however, mean that each denomination will not also maintain in time its own church or place of worship and faith formation."
Addressing education matters, he said "It is unfair of political figures to say on one day that Catholic education over-dominates the educational horizon, and on the next day try to blame the lack of space for children at school on the fact that there are fewer places available within the Catholic school system.
"There are fewer places available because not enough classrooms and desks have been planned despite forewarning about the numbers involved."
He underlined that he had consistently expressed his opinion "that the fostering of plurality of educational patronage is something desirable and welcome in Ireland today, North and South, and could bring benefit to all, also in allowing the specifically Catholic school to be more distinctively Catholic."
He continued: "My desire is to limit the number of new Catholic schools in developing areas of Dublin to what is required to satisfy the requests of parents who wish to send their children to Catholic schools. This is not narrow confessionalism.
"In some of these existing schools up to 30 per cent of the pupils belong to other religions or faiths but their parents wish to provide their children with education in a religious ethos."
On May 29th last, defending its decision to ask Archbishop Martin to act as interim patron for Scoil Choilm at Diswellstown in west Dublin, the State's first community school at primary level, the Department of Education said pupils enrolled at Scoil Choilm had previously applied to schools in the area under Catholic patronage (and had been unable to secure places).
"For this reason, the department requested the Archbishop to revive an earlier application to establish a school in the area," a department statement said.
(The full text of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's address is available at www.dublindiocese.ie in "media archive".)
