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 ...
Special Needs Assistants must evangelise vulnerable children in Irish schools
Special Needs Assistants must evangelise vulnerable children in State-funded Irish schools. It is not an occupational requirement of a Special Needs Assistant to teach religion, but they still must be prepared to evangelise vulnerable children into a religious way of life. This is a breach of the right of atheist and ...
Irish school teachers must be Catholic missionaries
Thinking of getting into the teaching profession in Ireland? If so be prepared to be a missionary for the Catholic Church. The vast majority of publicly funded schools in Ireland are controlled by the Catholic Church, and if you want to get a job as a teacher you have to ...
Atheist Ireland to lobby EU, as Irish State says EU sanctions discrimination against atheist teachers
Irish State claims EU sanctions discrimination against atheist teachers. After today’s Seanad debate, the Bill to protect teachers from religious discrimination in schools will still not protect atheist or religious minority teachers at all, including Protestant or Muslim teachers, who cannot access the teaching profession in Ireland. Atheist Ireland will ...
Atheist Ireland Supports call to Repeal 8th Amendment Abortion Ban
Atheist Ireland supports calls for referendum to Repeal 8th Amendment (abortion ban) - section 40.3.3, to the Irish Constitution states: “The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, ...
Dáil told Catholic Church “Sole Supplier” of Chaplains
The Minster for Education and Skills, Jan O'Sullivan TD, has told the Dáil that in respect of hiring for publicly funded chaplain roles, Institutes of Technology in Ireland may be in a "sole supplier situation". Dundalk Institute of Technology has decided that the only supplier capable of providing pastoral services ...
State tells UN that children are refused access to schools only in exceptional cases
The State has informed the United Nations that Irish legislation provides that, in exceptional cases, a school can refuse to admit a student who is not of the religion of the school, provided that it can prove that this refusal is essential to maintain the ethos of the school. This ...