The ETBs and the Catholic Bishops claim that they are legally obliged to promote the spiritual education of all students through religious education. They use this as a lobbying tactic with the Department of Education, in order to continue to evangelise, and to ensure that students that opt out of ...
Atheist Ireland has written today to all political parties that are contesting the Local Elections on 24th May, asking them to support the right of students to attend ETB schools without attending religion classes, and for students who do not attend religion classes to be given an alternative timetabled subject. ...
In 2000 when the NCCA Religion Education course was introduced in schools, the Department of Education described it as optional. In practice, most schools made it compulsory. This was despite the fact that, of all of the subjects, religion is the only one that you have a constitutional right to ...
Atheist Ireland has obtained under the Freedom of Information Act an email and letter from last September, from Donegal Education and Training Board, in the Minister for Education’s constituency. In that internal exchange, the ETB’s Director of Schools advised Moville Community College to “write to the parents of the opt ...
Atheist Ireland is today holding a protest outside the Teachers Union of Ireland National Congress in the INEC Centre in Killarney, Kerry, to coincide with the Minister for Education, Joe McHugh, addressing the conference. We are highlighting two things: 1. The Teachers Union of Ireland refused to implement a lawful ...
Based on Freedom of Information requests by Atheist Ireland, here are seventeen examples of State-run ETB schools paying State money to representatives of religious bodies during calendar year 2017, mostly for Catholic Youth Ministry services. The sums paid by any one school range from €4,162 paid by Colaiste Dun Iascaigh ...
Atheist Ireland has published a major new report titled How State Schools Break The Rules. It explains how the Department of Education, the ETBs, and the NCCA are breaching Constitutional and Human Rights and the IHREC Act in Religious Education in ETB schools. We will be using this report as the ...
ETB schools are wrongly telling students that they cannot opt out of the State religious education course at second level, and are wrongly trying to justify that by referring to a misleading clarification of a directive from the Department of Education. In February last year the Department told ETB schools ...
The new specification for the Junior Cycle Religious Education curriculum, due to be introduced in schools in September 2019, disrespects the rights of parents who seek secular education for their children based on human rights. The new course reflects the disrespect that the State has for non-religious parents and their children. ...
An internal letter from the ETBI, in advance of a meeting with the Catholic Bishops in 2017, shows the extent to which the ETBI wanted to facilitate Catholic Church teaching in State-run Community National Schools. Atheist Ireland obtained the letter under the Freedom of Information Act. The letter refers to ...
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