Government must amend the Equality Acts to protect nonreligious beliefs
Atheist Ireland has made the following submission to the Department of Justice's consultation on the review of the Equality Acts. You can make a submission yourself, before 29th November, after reading the details on the Department's website. Please feel free to include points that we have made in our submission. ...
IHREC must protect the positive right to nonreligious philosophical beliefs
Atheist Ireland sent this submission to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission's consultation for their Strategy Statement 2022-24. We have also taken part in a follow-up meeting about our submission. We are asking the Commission to protect the positive right to nonreligious philosophical beliefs, by promoting a change in our Equality Laws ...
Religious school ethos prevents objective Relationships and Sexuality Education
On Monday Atheist Ireland attended a webinar by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment about developments in Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) at primary level and Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE at second level). The NCCA is currently updating these courses. The Minister for Education Norma Foley and ...
Religion teachers are undermining the rights of atheist and minority faith families
The Irish Times has reported that religion teachers have complained about Catholic students being bullied because they are different. They are correct to raise this issue. No student should be treated differently because of their religious beliefs or those of their parents. But the empathy of religion teachers for people ...
How Irish schools breach the Constitutional rights of atheist and minority faith families
In Ireland, freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief means that if you belong to a religious or nonreligious minority, your rights are suspended in order to guarantee freedom of religion for the religious majority. This breaches the rights of parents and children under the Irish Constitution. This article examines ...
Another court judgment that supports the rights of atheist and secular parents
In Ireland parents have a constitutional right to raise their children in accordance with their philosophical convictions. The State is constitutionally obliged to respect that right in the education system. Despite this Church and State continue to ignore the findings of the courts in Ireland and evangelise all children into ...
NCCA removes names of Religious Education Reference Group members from its website
The syllabus Religious Education Course was updated in 2019. The NCCA recently removed from its website the names of the Religious Education Reference Group members who shaped the course. In the interests of transparency, we have published their names below. This Religious Education Reference Group was heavily influenced by religious ...
Comprehensive School with Minister for Education as Patron discriminates on the ground of religion
A Comprehensive school where the Minister for Education is part Patron discriminates on religious grounds against atheist and minority faith families. St. Columba’s Comprehensive School in Glenties, Co. Donegal, discriminates in access by giving preference to children from Catholic backgrounds. It also makes religion mandatory, and claims there is no ...
Parents in Cork want objective sex education, not the Catholic Flourish course
A group of parents in Cork are organising to challenge the Catholic Bishops sex education course ‘Flourish’ in their children’s Primary schools. The Catholic Bishops plan to teach their new course alongside syllabus Social, Personal and Health education in schools. The parents say: “We're a group of concerned parents in ...
Atheist Ireland asks Minister to respect parents’ rights in education system after Burke case
Atheist Ireland has written to the Minister for Education and all of the political party Education spokespersons, to seek meetings to discuss the recent decision of the Court of Appeal in the Burke case (Burke v Minister for Education 9.3.21). We believe that this case vindicates our Constitutional right to ensure ...