Thirteen of the State's best-known religious teaching orders are to form a joint trust to run their second-level schools.
In a sign of the impact of the continuing fall-off in vocations,this will eventually mean that school trustees will no longer be drawn from just one religious order, but from a group of orders.
A consultation process on how best to pool resources among the 13 religious orders concerned is to begin in May.
It is expected that this process will take at least two years. Each of the 50 schools in question will, however, retain their school names.
The religious orders involved in the initiative are: The Brigidine Sisters, Christian Education, Cross and Passion, De La Salle Brothers, Dominican Sisters, F.C.J., Holy Child, Holy Faith Sisters, Patrician Brothers, Poor Servants of the Mother of God, Sisters of Charity of St Paul, Sisters of Jesus and Mary and Sisters of St Louis.
Sister Maeve O'Reilly, a spokeswoman for Le Chéile, a Catholic schools trust, told The Irish Times that it would be unrealistic not to acknowledge that the fall-off in vocations played a part in the decision to form the joint trust. However, she believed that even if the religious orders had maintained their numbers, they would still have proceeded with the initiative.
"It's another step in the partnership that has been going on since the early 1970s. We want to ensure the maintenance of the Catholic ethos in our schools into the future. Where in the past each religious order may have had its own education office, one office could work equally well, or perhaps even better."
The initiative would also allow for greater involvement by the laity, she said. The religious orders in question were fully aware of the need for consultation with all those involved.
While the issue of whether schools would be able to retain their names had been an important one for the schools involved, she believed it was not only possible, but desirable, for them to do so.
Mr George O'Callaghan, general secretary of the Joint Managerial Board, representing the majority of school managers, welcomed the announcement. A number of questions had been raised about the future involvement of religious orders in school trusts. This development would, he said, help to clarify the future of these schools.