More than two-thirds of new schools established since 2005 are multidenominational or Irish language schools, according to the Department of Education.
The department was responding to reports that UN committees had twice called on the Government to amend existing legislation because of the danger that the non-Catholic children of immigrants could be discriminated against in schools admissions policies.
Minister for Education Mary Hanafin told RTÉ news there was no necessity to change existing legislation. The Equal Status Act gives religious schools the right to enrol children of their own faith first.
Ms Hanafin said the legislation "reflects the Irish education system.
"It allows for the situation where schools - whether Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Quaker - to ensure that they can protect their ethos."
Asked if she favoured amending the legislation, Ms Hanafin said that "it is within the right of each individual body to be able to protect their ethos as long as they are doing it in accordance with the law".
Two years ago the UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination expressed its concern to the Government that existing laws favoured Catholic pupils in schools admissions when there was a shortage of space. It called for legislation to be amended.
The committee said racial and religious discrimination intersected and it called on the Government to "promote the establishment of non-denominational or multidenominational schools".
It recommended that current legislation be changed to prevent any discrimination in the admission of children of all religions to schools.
The UN committee on the rights of the child last year supported the call for legislation to be changed.
In a statement, however, the Department of Education said an independent body - the New Schools Advisory Committee - had been established to assess all applications for recognition of new primary schools, and welcomed requests from all patron bodies.
"All patron bodies are treated on an equal footing regardless of whether they are non-denominational, denominational, inter-denominational or multidenominational.
"Of 34 new schools recognised since 2005, 24 are multi-denominational /Irish-medium schools."
Earlier this year Ms Hanafin announced the development of a new patron model and "schools established under the new patron model will be community primary schools and will be all-inclusive".
Work on the new patron model was ongoing within the department in consultation with the education partners, the statement said.
In a separate development Labour Party education spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan expressed concern at figures that showed primary school children get just over half the level of funding of third-level students.
"The Government spends €10,272 per student on third-level education, but only €5,701 on primary students.
"Ireland is near the bottom of the table in the overall spending of education in Europe," Ms O'Sullivan said.
