To Education Equality, which is striving to achieve equality of access to these schools, such threats are disappointing but not surprising.

The Catholic Primary Schools Management Association (CPSMA) has criticised Education Minister Richard Bruton’s plan as being part of a “secularisation agenda aimed mainly at the Catholic Church”.

It is worth remembering here that we are simply asking for equal access to local schools for our children, who tend to be far more preoccupied with Peppa Pig and Paw Patrol than a “secularisation agenda”.

As the Catholic Church controls 90% of primary schools, any reforms to admissions policies will inevitably primarily affect Catholic-run schools. For those seeking reform however, the agenda is simple: Equality for all children in the provision of public services and freedom of religion for their parents. There is no further agenda.

The CPSMA has also warned that such steps would conflict with constitutional protections for parents and religious schools. They appear only to be concerned with Catholics, rather than citizens generally.

As it happens, the Constitution makes no reference to a right for parents to send their children to schools that promote their particular religious or philosophical beliefs.

Given the diversity of religions and beliefs, all parents clearly cannot enjoy a right to send their children to a publicly-funded school of their own religion. Such a right would plainly be unworkable — how do you provide a Muslim school within a reasonable distance of every Muslim child in the country? — not to mention unsavoury in principle, as it implies segregating children along religious lines at five years of age.

Indeed, Article 44.2.4 of the Constitution makes specific reference to “the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending religious instruction at that school”. This provision clearly recognises that not all children in a given school will be of the same religion as the school’s patron.

Article 44.2.3 provides that: “The State shall not impose any disabilities or make any discrimination on the ground of religious profession, belief or status”.

Not only is there no constitutional impediment to the removal of the baptism barrier, there is a strong possibility that religion-based admissions policies are in fact unconstitutional.

This was the specific advice furnished to Education Equality in a legal opinion by Michael Lynn SC in 2016. Meanwhile, Article 42.1 acknowledges “that the primary and natural educator of the child is the Family” and, in defending parents’ rights to “provide…for the religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education of their children”, makes no specific reference to any particular religion.

The Association of Trustees of Catholic Schools describes Mr Bruton’s proposed reforms as “part of a process of encroachment on parental rights”, an apparent reference to freedom of association.

However, this is not a credible argument to invoke in the context of a public service that is paid for by all taxpayers. Equal school access will not infringe upon Catholic parents’ right to freely associate in any way, any more than it will infringe upon such rights of Muslims, Hindus or any other group.

Recent years have seen 10 recommendations from United Nations and Council of Europe human rights bodies, including the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, calling on Ireland to stop breaching human rights in its school admissions policies.

Far from encroaching on parental rights, Mr Bruton is clearly seeking to vindicate the rights of non-religious families and religious minorities.

Opponents of proposed reforms are keen to play down the numbers of children refused a school place on religious grounds. However, the effects of religion-based admissions policies reach far beyond these children, whatever their true number.

For every child turned away, many more will have been baptised purely to keep them at the front of the queue. Baptism rates stand in sharp contrast to our marriage statistics, where over one in three Irish couples now choose non-religious ceremonies.

Nowadays, only a little over half of couples marry in Catholic ceremonies (53.7% in 2016). Couples that do not baptise face years of stress and uncertainty that they would not face if they were of the “right” religion, and pay a heavy price for following their conscience.

Finally, these policies make our religious minorities feel unwelcome in their local school, whether they secure a place or not.

Future education policy must take account of three realities. First, non-religious and minority religion families hold their beliefs with the same conviction and the same sincerity as Christian families.

Second, their right to hold these beliefs is an equal right. Third, with the non-religious now our largest minority belief group by far, even a reinvigorated divestment drive cannot possibly keep up with the pace of demographic change. In any case, do we really want to segregate our children in a response to diversity?

We have neither the resources, the land nor the need to build a duplicate education system for families that do not fall within the traditional Catholic/Protestant paradigm.

It should be clear to any sober observer that our existing school network must do a much better job of welcoming these families, not only by providing equality of access as a matter of course, but by making religious instruction and worship a meaningful choice rather than a de facto obligation.

Irish society has changed, it’s time for our schools to change too.

David Graham is a father of two and communications officer with Education Equality