Many people are aware that the Irish Constitution requires the President and judges to swear a religious oath. Many people are unaware that this also applies to the Council of State, which includes the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Chief Justice, the President of Court of Appeal, the President of High Court, ...
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The Minister for Education, Norma Foley, has just given a telling example of how the Department of Education gives privilege to religious parents over nonreligious parents in Irish schools. As Carl O'Brien reports in the Irish Times, the Minister has stressed that parents have a right to ensure that their ...
This is from the Admission policy of Larkin Community College, a second level ETB school. There is no legal basis for the supposed distinction it makes between religious instruction and religious education. It is important to understand that our school does not provide ‘religious instruction’ and therefore the need to ...
Atheist Ireland has for years been raising the issue of objective sex education with the United Nations. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child included the following in its recent concluding observations about Ireland: Adolescent health (b) Integrate comprehensive, age-appropriate and evidence-based education on sexual and reproductive health into ...
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The oireachtas, not the Government or the Department of Education or schools, is responsible for regulating the Constitutional right to not attend religious instruction in schools. That is why statutory guidelines are needed, passed by the Oireachtas, not just Government policies, or circular letters from the Department, or abdication of ...
Katie Levine of Atheist Ireland told RTE's Liveline this week the name of the Irish schoolbook that promoted Catholic theologian and sex abuser Jean Vanier to children. TD Cathal Crowe had recalled the book the previous day but had not named it. It was Alive-O, a Catholic religion book that ...
Atheist Ireland welcomes today’s concluding observations about Ireland from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. We were in Geneva last month when the Committee questioned Ireland, and the Committee has made all of the recommendations we asked for. The UN has told Ireland to remove all ...
Two years ago the government proposed a new public holiday to mark the efforts of frontline workers during the Covid pandemic. The most obvious way to do that would have been to call it the Frontline Workers Public Holiday, or the February Bank Holiday dedicated to the frontline workers during ...