Labour Party responses to General Election questions from Atheist Ireland
Atheist Ireland has asked political parties and candidates running in the General Election on 8th February to answer ten questions regarding secular issues. Here are the responses from the Labour Party. 1. One Oath For All Will you support amending the Constitution to enable the President, Judges, and members of ...
Green Party responses to General Election questions from Atheist Ireland
Atheist Ireland has asked political parties and candidates running in the General Election on 8th February to answer ten questions regarding secular issues. Here are the responses from the Green Party. 1. One Oath For All Will you support amending the Constitution to enable the President, Judges, and members of ...
Hate speech review must not reintroduce blasphemy by another name
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, David Kaye, has told the UN General Assembly that there is no ‘heckler’s veto’ in international human rights law. His Report gives conclusions and recommendations for how States and Companies should approach online hate speech. Some of his key points are: Offline human ...
Remembering Joe Davis, who died this week
Joe Davis, one of Atheist Ireland’s earliest and most-loved members, died this week. For most of his life, he felt like an outsider as an atheist living in Ireland, and he was delighted to have found a like-minded community when Atheist Ireland was founded a decade ago. We were delighted ...
CCPC Questions Role of Bishops in School Book Market
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) has sought an explanation from the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference, in relation to a possible breach of EU competition law. The consumer protection body is concerned that the behaviour of the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference has been prejudicial to the interests of the ...
Now Minister Bruton wants to pay Catholic Church for Christian ETB schools to use their buildings
The Minister for Education has announced yet another consultation process in relation to religion and education. This time he hopes to pay the Catholic Church rent for school buildings, if they agree to a different Patron body running a small number of schools, while the State also pays for the operation and ...
Atheist Ireland to speak on human rights at UN in Geneva and OSCE in Warsaw
Next Friday 23rd September Atheist Ireland will become the first Atheist advocacy group to address the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. We will make this speech during the adoption of the Report from Ireland at the 33rd Session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). We will then go ...
Atheist Ireland response to Programme for Government and UN examination of Ireland
This week saw two significant developments that will affect Atheist Ireland’s work in the coming years: the new Programme for Government, and the UN questioning of Ireland’s human rights record under the Universal Periodic Review process. Atheist Ireland will continue to promote an ethical, secular Ireland as partners in the ...
Background information for UN human rights review of Ireland
This page describes human rights breaches in Ireland that Sir Nigel Rodley has described as being connected to: "The institutional belief system that has predominated in the State Party, and which occasionally has sought to dominate the State Party" The page is a resource for United Nations delegates who are ...
Professor Conway invents a bogeyman of an Irish “subcultural secularist elite”
In a recent talk to the Iona Institute, Rev. Professor Eamonn Conway, head of Theology and Religious Studies at Mary Immaculate College, invented a bogeyman that he calls a “subcultural secular elite” to frighten Catholics into thinking that their control of the education system is under immediate threat. Rev. Professor Conway ...