Atheist Ireland wrote again this week to the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee and the Comptroller and Auditor General about the misuse of public funds by the Department of Education. We also met with the Office of the Children’s Ombudsman to discuss the rights of children and parents in schools, and Michael Nugent did an interview on Newstalk Radio about how to leave the Catholic Church.The Department of Education is funding schools, while knowing that those schools do not adhere to the constitutional conditions of those funds, which include respecting the right of children to not attend religious instruction and the rights of parents in relation to religious and moral formation of their children.

The Department also knows that schools are ignoring their legal obligations to tell parents in their admissions policies how they will deal with students who do not want to attend religious instruction. In reality most schools either tell parents to meet with the principal, or hide behind an invented distinction between religious instruction and education that has no basis in law.

In the recent Burke case about home schooling, the Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Education, when translating government policy into an administrative scheme, has to respect the constitutional rights of children and parents. The rights we are campaigning for are stronger than the rights in that case, as ours are explicitly written into the constitution and law.

You can help us to campaign on these and other secular issues 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.

Since last December, Atheist Ireland has been lobbying to vindicate the constitutional right to not attend religious instruction in schools, and to uphold parental authority in the education of their children, which the Supreme Court has described as a foundational pillar of the Constitution.
You can read details here of our correspondence to date with various bodies
We have today sent this letter to the Oireachtas Committee on Public Accounts.
Dear Public Accounts Committee Secretariat, thank you for your letter dated 10 October, which begins:

“I refer to the meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts on 15 September 2022. The Committee considered your correspondence dated 27 July 2022 regarding Atheist Ireland’s ongoing engagement with the Department of Education.”

Can we first clarify that our letter of 27 July was not primarily about our ongoing engagement with the Department of Education. It was about our complaint to the Committee on Public Accounts about the misuse of public funds by the Department of Education. We were, and still are, asking your committee to examine this complaint, and to take action to end this misuse of public funds.
Like any issue, this issue has aspects which other bodies can also examine. However, it is your Committee’s remit and responsibility to examine those elements of this issue that involve the misuse of public funds. We would like a response from your committee to the substance of our complaint. We are happy to meet with your committee to clarify these issues further.
Our letter of 27 July was in response to your letter of 4 July, in which you noted that:

(a) There is ongoing engagement between the Department and Atheist Ireland.
(b) The matters raised in our correspondence relate to an interpretation of the Irish Constitution, and it is not the role of your Committee to adjudicate on such interpretations.
(c) It is not within your Committee’s remit to examine the merits of Government policy that might flow from such interpretations.
(d) We might make our enquiry to the Oireachtas Education Committee.

In our letter of 27 July, we addressed these four issues as follows:

(a) We were then still waiting for the Department of Education to get back to us with a response. However, we said that the Department of Education should not be left to examine itself regarding its misuse of public funds.
(b) We were not asking you to adjudicate on any interpretations of the Constitution because the Oireachtas already funds and upholds the determinations of the Constitution made by the Supreme Court, whose role it is to make such determinations.
(c) We were not asking you to examine the merits of any government policy or indeed of any legislation. We were asking you to examine the failure of the Department of Education to administer Constitutional rights and legislation, with regard to state funding of schools, in accordance with the distinction made between policy and administration by the Supreme Court in the Burke case.
(d) We had been also, as you suggested, raising aspects of the issue with the Oireachtas Education Committee. However, we said it is your Committee’s remit to examine those elements of the issue that involve the misuse of public funds.

You have asked for our consent to forward our correspondence dated 27 July 2022 to the Joint Committee on Education for any action it might deem appropriate. You say that matters regarding the implementation of legislation are within the remit of that Committee. As we have said, we are also raising aspects of the issue with the Oireachtas Education Committee. Read more….

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Atheist Ireland’s ‘notme.ie‘ is a place where people can publicly renounce the religion of their childhood. Currently there are 1953 symbolic defections. Many share their reasons for making a public symbolic defection which you can read here. 

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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.

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