As the Department of Education rolls out a national survey of pre and primary school parents, it will want to avoid at all costs a repeat of the fiasco of 2019, when attempts to gauge the views of parents in north Dublin on a potential shift in one or two local primary schools to multi-denominational education descended into farce and failure.
There was a survey then too, of pre-school parents, and it found a significant demand for multi-denominational primary education in the Swords-Malahide area.
But when three Catholic local schools were asked whether one of them might consider changing patronage to meet that demand, the reaction was unexpected.
In letters to parents, the schools made claims; that becoming multi-denominational would mean no more Christmas celebrations, or St Patrick's day or Easter celebrations.
One warned that they would no longer be able to celebrate the role of grandparents in children’s lives, that a "sense of belonging" would be lost.
It was all untrue, but the misinformation caused chaos and behind the sensational headlines the message was unequivocal; those in charge of these schools did not want change and they were determined to make that clear to parents.
A few years later, a second attempt was made, to see if school communities could be brought onboard for change to reflect the clear demand that surveys and CSO and other data reveal, for non-Catholic primary education.
Sixty-three school communities across the country were consulted. They included schools in another North Dublin suburb.
Again the exercise failed to produce significant change. Nationally just two schools transferred.
In an internal report a retired Department of Education inspector who facilitated the north Dublin discussions described a bitter and divisive process, "troubled by suspicions and lack of trust from an early stage".
In a text message to me one Dublin parent who wanted change called the process "disastrous".
"It has caused a huge amount of distress in this community" she said. "We have largely given up", she added.
The impact of these failures cannot be underestimated.
They led to a retrenchment which moved the state even farther from its goal, as expressed in the previous Programme for Government, of seeing 250 existing primary schools switch to multi-denominational patronage by 2030.
Now the Department of Education and Youth is going to try again.
It says it has learned a lot, about what works and doesn’t work.
"We have learned that we need accessible, succinct, and accurate information for parents," its secretary General Bernie McNally said two years ago.
The parents of pre-school and primary school age children will be surveyed.
Parents will fill out the online surveys in the privacy of their own homes, not at their schools.
They will be asked to express their preference when it comes to school ethos - religious or non, also whether they want English or Irish medium education, and single-sex or mixed.
The department hopes to use the outcomes to reshape primary education in a broader way too - to reshape for example the experience of non-Catholic children who are attending Catholic schools.
No matter how inclusive a Catholic primary school strives to be, the fact that religious instruction is delivered in the classroom during the school day makes a degree of exclusion inevitable.
A school that switched
Erdeniz Futaci and Yasmin Gaafar are in fifth class in Cornamaddy CNS in Athlone. Two years ago, the school switched from Catholic to multi-denominational ethos.
Despite the fact that under Catholic patronage the school strove to be inclusive and welcoming of all, both Erdeniz and Yasmin have painful memories.
"I felt excluded when they were doing their communions and we had to do work when they didn’t have to," Erdeniz told me on a recent visit to the school.
"I remember when everyone was practising their songs for the communion and their prayers and when they did the prayer in the morning and before leaving school I felt like 'why am i not a part of them, why can't I be, and why can't they see the good that is in me too?’, Yasmin said.
Both children said their experience of exclusion made them feel "sad".
The principal of Cornamaddy CNS Yvonne Naughton was sitting in a corner of the room as Erdeniz and Yasmin spoke, and was taken aback by what they said.
"To hear that the children felt excluded has actually really hit me hard," she said.
She described how the school - in its days under Catholic patronage - had worked hard to include all children.
"I was a teacher and I was teaching one of the sacraments - Confirmation - so I now know that I had children in my class who though I did try hard to make them feel included that they actually felt excluded.
"That really hits you as a teacher.
"You can give them something alternative and think that is fun but ultimately what they want is to be part of that lesson, with their classmates."
Of the shift from Catholic to multi-denominational, Erdeniz says "before that it was a little bit equal but now it is fully equal".
Preparation for the sacraments still happens at the school but directly after schooltime and it is done by the parish.
The school has replaced Catholic instruction with a multi-denominational beliefs and values programme.
Parents at the school say that apart from that, nothing has changed.
Rosie Brill has put two children through Cornamaddy and her youngest son is a pupil there now.
"The teachers are amazing, the school is amazing," she said.
"They still have the Christmas play, they still have St Patrick's Day, they still have Easter.
"All of these things still happen, absolutely. But it is for all of the kids now, there is no one left out."
The need for wider change is clear.
In the last census, when asked about their child’s religion, 16% of parents of children under four ticked the 'no religion' box.
A further 9% did not indicate any religion at all.
Among 25-29 year-olds - 53% stated that they were Catholic. 26% stated that they had no religion. A further 7% ticked no box at all.
Yet 90% of primary schools here are Catholic.
It is a mismatch that the Department of Education and Youth has long been aware of.
A spokesperson from the department pointed to another statistic, the fact that just 30% of marriages now take place in the Catholic church.
Now, those young couples, and others, will be given their say.
