When parents seek to remove their child from religious instruction, many schools ignore their constitutional and legal duty to respect this right, and their legal duty to do this without shortening the school day of any student concerned. Some schools tell parents that they can’t supervise students outside the religion ...
The Constitutional rights that were meant to protect Irish families from religious teaching in publicly funded schools are simply ignored, and have been undermined over the years. Not only do our children not have access to non denominational secular education but they don’t have access to education delivered in an ...
According to the Supreme Court, the reason there is a right to home school in our Constitution is because of the right to freedom of conscience. Article 42.2 guarantees the right to home school, and this right was upheld by the Supreme Court in the Burke case in 2022. The ...
We don’t accept claims by church and state that publicly funded religious schools, particularly Catholic schools which are the majority, are inclusive and welcome and respect everyone equally. The reason we don't accept these claims is that the evidence of reality contradicts them, and we experience the injustice and hurt ...
The courts in Ireland have found that parents have a constitutional right to have religious education and religious formation in publicly funded schools. In order to remove this right from the Constitution, we would need a referendum. Any legislation that forbids religious education and formation in schools would be unconstitutional. ...
The number of Catholic weddings has recovered from its dramatic drop during Covid, and has returned to the pattern of steady decline that has been happening for the past decade. In the decade since 2012, the percentage of Catholic weddings has dropped from 65.2% to 40.5%, and nonreligious weddings (civil ...
Atheist Ireland has sent the following response to a letter from Bernie McNally, Secretary General of the Department of Education, regarding our correspondence with the Oireachtas Education Committee about the right to not attend religious instruction in schools. Dear Secretary General, We refer to your letter dated 1st of March ...
The Court of Appeal found that, when it interprets the obligations of a Board of Management under the Education Act 1998, it must have regard to the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights. Probably no Board of Management in the country is even aware what obligations they have ...
Atheist Ireland had a constructive meeting this week with the Catholic Education Partnership, the body that coordinates Catholic education in Ireland. We met in Maynooth with chief executive officer Alan Hynes and chairperson Marie Griffin, and we have arranged a follow-up meeting to further discuss these issues: The right to ...
Atheist Ireland has written again to the Oireachtas Education Committee regarding an anti-abortion video shown to students during curriculum Religious Education in an Irish school. Here is the letter we have written. We refer to our letter to the Committee on 21st August 2021 regarding, among other issues, an anti-abortion ...
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