Atheist Ireland has made the following submission to the NCCA Consultation on the Draft Primary Curriculum Specifications. Introduction This submission focuses on two areas of the draft specifications: Social and Environmental Education (Geography and History) Wellbeing (Physical Education and Social, Personal and Health Education) Both of these areas include items relevant to education about religion, beliefs, and ethics. It is those items that we are focusing on. Contents 1. Recommendations 2. Constitutional rights of parents and their children 3. Freedom of conscience in the Irish Constit ..read more

Atheist Ireland has written the following letter to the Minister for Justice, Taoiseach, Tanaiste, and Minister for Equality regarding the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill and the recent Sokolovskiy v. Russia case at the European Court of Human Rights. Dear Ministers and Taoiseach, We would like to draw your attention to the above recent case regarding Article 10, freedom of expression at the European Court of human rights. (We attach an English translation of the judgment, which was published in French). In light of this case we ask you to l ..read more

In February 2018 the School Governance Section of the Dept of Education issued Circular Letter 0013/2018. Circular Letters are ‘policy’; the purpose of the policy was to oblige ETBs to offer students, who are not taking religion, another subject. At the time we were told by the Department that the purpose of the Circular Letter was to change the culture of the ETBs in relation to religion. In October 2018 the School Governance Section of the Dept of Education issued another Circular Letter 0062/2018, clarifying the previous one issued in February. They removed the obligation on ETBs to offer s ..read more

The state pays out approx 10 million a year for mainly catholic chaplains in ETB schools (there are some COI chaplains). Chaplains are paid by the state to help Catholic parents with the religious formation of their children. We know this because there was a court case in 1998 about this specific issue (Campaign to Separate Church & State v Minister for Education 1998). There is Catholic religious formation in ETB schools and colleges. To claim otherwise is to ignore the fact that the state pays chaplains approximately €10 million per year to assist Catholic parents with the religious form ..read more

The phrase ‘faith formation’ in schools is not in the Constitution. Whether you refer to faith formation classes, or faith formation in the general atmosphere of the school, there is simply no Article in our Constitution that uses the term ‘faith formation’. It is not possible to remove what is referred to as ‘faith formation’ from schools without defining legally what this term means, and taking into account existing Constitutional rights, duties and powers. The Department of Education, Patron bodies and schools have no legal power to change or redefine Constitutional rights. The recent refer ..read more

The Irish National Teachers Association has voted to lobby to remove a religious education qualification that is required by all teachers who wish to teach in Catholic primary schools. They will also form a task force to look at the future of primary school patronage. This highlights one of Atheist Ireland’s main policy issues – that teachers in Ireland can be legally discriminated against on the grounds of religion. As the vast majority of schools in Ireland are managed by Patrons with a religious purpose, access to the teaching profession has been curtailed. It is a Catholic ethos that preva ..read more

The recent referendums have shown that words in the constitution matter. The Supreme Court has found that children have a Constitutional right to not attend any course in religious instruction. The Supreme Court also said that this right is based on the conscience of parents. Despite the fact that the right to not attend religious instruction in publicly funded schools is written into the text and structure of the Constitution, there is no practical application given to it on the ground. Students are left sitting in the religion class and no supervision is provided by schools. Article 44.2.4 s ..read more

Atheist Ireland has sent the following Petition to the Oireachtas Committee on Public Petitions and the Ombudsmen Petition : The Houses of the Oireachtas to guarantee and give practical application to the constitutional right to attend any school in receipt of public funding and not attend religious instruction The Constitution and Legislation relating to the right Article 44.2.4 of the Irish Constitution Legislation providing State aid for schools shall not discriminate between schools under the management of different religious denominations, nor be such as to affect prejudicially the rig ..read more

The CSO figures report that there were 3,350 Spiritualists in the country in 2022. That is, 3,350 people ticked the ‘other religion, if any’ box and wrote in ‘spiritualist’ as their religion. Yet the marriage figures from the Central Statistics Office show that in 2022 there were 4,504 marriages performed in accordance with the rites of spiritualist religions. That’s nearly one in every five marriages last year. The spiritualist religions whose registered solemnisers conducted these weddings are the Spiritualist Union of Ireland, One Spirit Interfaith Foundation, One World Ministers, Our Spir ..read more

Opening up 400 multi denominational schools throughout the country will never achieve pluralism in education. The policy of successive governments is to segregate children in some areas of the country on the basis of their parents’ religion. Even if the state opened up 400 multi denominational schools throughout the country it would still leave many parents in the position whereby they had no choice but to sent their children to the only local school under catholic patronage. Even the Oireachtas Education Committee said that “Multiple patronage and ethos as a basis for policy can lead to segre ..read more