A group of parents in Cork are organising to challenge the Catholic Bishops sex education course ‘Flourish’ in their children’s Primary schools. The Catholic Bishops plan to teach their new course alongside syllabus Social, Personal and Health education in schools. The parents say: “We’re a...
Atheist Ireland has written the following letter to all Government Ministers, TDs and Senators. Please contact your own TD or Senator and ask them to support legislation for objective sex education. Dear Minister, TD, Senator, The Programme for Government commits to make legislative changes, if...
The Vice Chair of the INTO, Joe McKeown, said yesterday that the INTO would take steps to make sure that teachers are not disciplined or punished for a failure to use the Catholic sex education programme Flourish in schools. And Tanaiste Leo Varadkar said today...
As the NCCA is updating the syllabus for Social, Personal, and Health Education (SPHE), the Catholic Bishops are circling the croziers by introducing a new course called ‘Flourish’ in publicly funded national schools. Flourish is officially Relationship and Sex Education, and in practice is Catholic...
Last month Atheist Ireland, the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Ireland, made a joint submission to the Public Consultation Commission on the Defence Forces. You can read that here. We argued that Roman Catholicism is part of the culture of...
Ireland will be questioned this year by the United Nations Human Rights Council under a process called the Universal Periodic Review. Atheist Ireland, the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Ireland, have made this joint submission to UN on freedom of...
Atheist Ireland, the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Ireland, have made the following joint submission to the Public Consultation Commission on the Defence Forces. 1. Introduction 2. Overview 3. Population Demographics 4. Catholic Culture in the Defence Forces 5. What...
The Vatican has repeated its policy that it will not bless same sex unions. This should not be a surprise for anybody who is following the changing demographics of the Catholic Church, and the leadership of the theologically conservative Pope Francis, who started his papacy...
There is an established internationally recognised human right to be atheist, agnostic, secular, humanist, or in any other way free from religion. This human right is part of the fundamental right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief. It applies equally to all persons,...
The Oireachtas Justice Committee is scrutinising the Dying with Dignity Bill 2020. This is a submission from Atheist Ireland responding to questions raised by the Committee. Define the problem/the policy issue which the Bill is designed to address; to what extent is it an issue...