The United Nations Human Rights Committee is questioning Ireland in July about our human rights record under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, or ICCPR. As we always do, Atheist Ireland has made a submission about freedom of conscience, religion, and belief. Some of the issues that we are raising are as follows:

We want the State to commit to ensuring that every child has the right to access a local publicly funded school without religious discrimination, and to correct its false statement to the UN that the government’s policy includes opening non-denominational schools.

As an immediate step, the State should respect and vindicate the right of children who exercise their constitutional right to not attend religious instruction, and provide such children with supervision or an alternative curriculum subject.

The State should ensure that schools provide a neutral studying environment, outside the confines of religious instruction classes that students can choose to not attend, with particular emphasis on objective sex eduction classes.

The State should commit to holding a referendum to remove religious oaths from the Constitution and replace them with a single declaration that does not reveal the religious or nonreligious beliefs of the person making it.

The State should amend Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act so that minorities can train and gain employment as teachers without being legally obliged to uphold a specific religious ethos and teach religious instruction particularly in publicly funded schools.

As always, you can help us to continue our work by joining Atheist Ireland as a member, or by asking anybody who you think may be interested in joining us to do so. We are an entirely voluntary body with no paid staff, and we depend on our members to continue our work. You can join Atheist Ireland here.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee is questioning Ireland in July about our human rights record under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, or ICCPR.
Atheist Ireland has made the following submission about Freedom of Conscience, Religion, and Belief. You can also read it here on the United Nations website.
Contents

• 1. Introduction to Atheist Ireland
• 2. Our recommendations based on Paragraph 20
• 3. List of Issues Paragraph 20
• 4. Education (Admission to Schools) Act
• 5. Other measures to improve access to secular schools
• 5(a) No secular or non-denominational schools
• 5(b) The right of parents to freedom of conscience
• 5(c) The right to a neutral studying environment
• 6. Religious Oaths in the Constitution
• 7. Section 37(1) of the Employment Equality Act 1998

1. Introduction to Atheist Ireland
Atheist Ireland is an Irish advocacy group. We promote atheism and reason over superstition and supernaturalism, and we promote an ethical, secular society where the State does not discriminate against or support or finance or give special treatment to any religion or belief.
Atheists are a minority in Ireland. These are the last census figures in 2016 under the category for Religion states (figures in thousands): Roman Catholic 3,729.1 – Church of Ireland 126.4 – Muslim (Islamic) 63.4 – Orthodox 62.2 – Christian 37.4 – Presbyterian 24.2 – Hindu 14.3 – Apostolic or Pentecostal 13.4 – Other 97.7 – No religion 468.4 – Not stated 125.3.
Since being formed in late 2008, we have campaigned for a secular human rights based Irish Constitution, parliament, laws, and government, with particular emphasis on our education system which discriminates systemically on the ground of religion. We are part of the dialogue process between the Government and religious and nonreligious philosophical bodies.
We led a successful decade-long campaign to remove the crime of blasphemy from the Irish Constitution. The 37th Amendment to the Constitution Bill was brought to Dáil Éireann and the Irish public passed the amendment in a referendum in 2018. The Blasphemy (Abolition of Offences and Related Matters) Act was passed in 2019.
We base our policies on human rights standards. We have addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council and we take part in sessions of various UN Committees. We have successfully had human rights based recommendations made based on our submissions to these committees. We have also made submissions to the OSCE and the Council of Europe.
2. Our recommendations based on paragraph 20
20 (a) Part 1 Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018

The State should commit to ensuring that every child has the right to access a local publicly funded school without religious discrimination or being threatened with refusal of access if they don’t uphold the schools ethos.
The State should ensure that schools and patron bodies comply with Section 62(7)(n) of the Education (Admissions to schools) Act 2018 by actually writing into their admission policies the details of the arrangements for children who are not attending religious instruction, and not by saying that parents have to meet with the school principal to discuss it.

20 (a) Part 2 Other measures to improve access to secular schools

The State should correct its false statement to the Committee that the government’s policy is to have 400 ‘multi-denominational or non-denominational’ schools by 2030, and acknowledge that this policy refers only to ‘multi-denominational’ schools.
The State should commit to establishing secular or non-denominational schools at primary and second level, and not merely multi-denominational schools.
The State should legally and clearly define the terms denominational, multi-denominational, interdenominational, and non-denominational, as per the Irish Human Rights & Equality Commission Report ‘Religion & Education; A human Rights Perspective’.
The State should provide statutory guidelines to ensure that publicly funded schools:
Respect and vindicate the positive rights of minorities to freedom of conscience and respect for their religious or nonreligious philosophical convictions.
Respect and vindicate the right of children who exercise their constitutional right to not attend religious instruction, and provide such children with supervision or an alternative curriculum subject.
Provide a neutral studying environment, outside the confines of religious instruction classes that students can choose to not attend.

20 (b) Religious Oaths in the Constitution

The State should commit to holding a referendum to remove religious oaths from the Constitution and replace them with a single declaration that does not reveal the religious or nonreligious beliefs of the person making it.
The State should reverse its claim, made at the European Court, that these oaths are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

20 (c) Section 37(1) of the Employment Equality Act 1998

The State should amend Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act so that minorities can train and gain employment as teachers without being legally obliged to uphold a specific religious ethos and teach religious instruction particularly in publicly funded schools.

Read more…

Atheist Ireland’s ‘notme.ie‘ is a place where people can publicly renounce the religion of their childhood. Currently there are 1927 symbolic defections. Many share their reasons for making a public symbolic defection which you can read here. 

Tell us what you think

Have you any feedback that you would like to give us on the Secular Sunday newsletter. What are we getting right? What could we improve on? Is there something you would like to see included? Drop us an email at secularsunday@atheist.ie.

Atheist Ireland is an entirely volunteer run organisation. We receive no grants or government funding to continue our campaign work. We rely entirely on membership fess and donations.

Annual membership is nominal; €25 waged, €10 unwaged/student and €40 for family membership. Please consider becoming a member. Membership means:

National

Number of women and girls travelling to Great Britain for abortions rising

By author

Podcasts, Videos and Interviews

Ireland

International

Ireland

• More than 100 homes approved for site of former church as part of scheme to provide social homes
• Housing minister raises ‘underutilised’ church-owned land across country
• Mullingar religious lands with residential potential guiding at €2.75m
• Irish Catholics meet for ‘once in 2,000-year’ chance to reform church
• Co Mayo churchs bloody Eucharist – miracle or mold?
• Treatment at family funeral showed how Catholic Church just keeps scoring own goals
• British MPs support moves for UK Government to commission Northern Ireland abortion services

International

• Any deity would do for the ancient Romans
• 6 arrested in Indonesia for blasphemy after bar’s free drinks for Muhammad promo backfires 
• FBI raids Georgia churches near military bases, sources say church was targeting soldiers
• US woman denied abortion in Malta flies to Spain to terminate pregnancy
• Cyrus Engerer questions abortion ban: ‘Shouldn’t that woman’s life been saved in Malta?’
• America’s Supreme Court requires Maine to include religious schools in a tuition programme
• Supreme Court OKs use of public money for religious education
• Woman convicted of offending religious feelings by throwing eggs at church in Polish abortion protest
• How a Religious Sect Landed Google in a Lawsuit
• Roe v Wade: Abortion clinics start to close after Supreme Court ruling
• Jewish letters ‘support claims wartime pope focused on helping Catholic converts’
• Factbox: U.S. Supreme Court takes broad view of religious rights in key cases