IT WOULD be premature to establish a forum on school patronage until current work on the issue is completed, according to Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe.

He considered the commission on school accommodation as a “working forum in progress in respect of patronage”, and a new model of patronage, started in September last year, was being piloted in two national schools.

Mr O’Keeffe said he did not rule out a forum in the future as Labour education spokesman Ruairí Quinn asked: “Can we get beyond the squinting windows of dialogue and the cultural deference of the past”.

Mr Quinn pointed out that Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, “probably the largest patron in the country” with responsibility for one seventh of all primary schools, said “the dominance of his patronage was a legacy of the past which no longer reflected the needs either of his church or of the community”.

Mr O’Keeffe said his department “is not certain the Archbishop of Dublin and the chair of the Irish Bishops’ Conference are in unison on this issue”.

“It is only right and fair that we get a clear indication from the Catholic Church of its views on patronage across the country.”

Mr Quinn said some department officials were characterised in the Ryan commission report as “having a culture of deference, so can we help to weaken that deference”, and “instead of polite conversations with officials can we hold the dialogue in the open”.

Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes said he believed the Minister “has an open view on this matter”.

“If ever there was a need for a talking shop in respect of a particular matter, this is it.”

He appealed to the Minister to “reconsider this issue during the summer recess”.

Mr O’Keeffe said there was no reason a forum could not be established in the future. When he had the results of the commission’s work and an evaluation of the pilot project model schools “at that point it would be important to establish an open forum”.