The Equal Participation in Schools Bill 2016 will be debated in the Dail next Tuesday night between 8pm and 10pm. If passed this Bill would ensure that all children and their parents have access to an education system with equal respect and dignity and where...
In the context of the ongoing controversy about the new National Maternity Hospital being given to a religious order, it is instructive to look at what it means for State-funded public services to be run by private faith-based organisations. The Mater Hospital is run by...
The Irish State has put in place laws that enable religious organisations (mainly the Catholic Church) to campaign on political issues such as the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution and religious control of schools. But ethical secular organisations, including Atheist Ireland, get no such benefit...
Catholic Bishop Denis Nulty has said that only 1% of students opt out of religion in Irish primary schools. We don’t know the reliability of the survey he is basing this figure on. But, if it is accurate, it simply proves that the opt out...
The Polish government this week backed down from a controversial Bill to make abortion more restrictive, because of a wave of protests in Poland and internationally. In September, Atheist Ireland spoke against this Bill at a rally in Warsaw, when we were in Poland for...
The Irish State has ceded control of most of our publicly funded schools to a Church that swaps at will between being a religion and being a foreign state. This foreign State claims internationally they are not responsible for the running of Catholic schools in...
Atheist Ireland is among many women’s rights organisations and campaigners from Britain and internationally who have today submitted a letter to the United Kingdom Home Secretary raising serious concerns about the UK Government’s ‘independent review’ into Sharia courts in Britain. The letter states that the...
Atheist Ireland complies with the various pieces of legislation that regulate the funding and payment for political campaigning in Ireland. Unlike some other groups with secular or religious political aims, we are all volunteers, but we have managed to ensure that our funding and donations...
In a project instigated by Atheist Ireland, Atheist Alliance International has published a Gender Balance Report. It was coordinated by John Hamill, Atheist Ireland’s representative on the AAI Board, with input from Ashling O’Brien, Atheist Ireland’s Regional Officer, and Professor Sabina Brennan of the School...
Catholic School Cancels Invitation Atheist Ireland chairperson Michael Nugent was scheduled to speak today to the final year students at a Dublin-based Dominican girl’s secondary school. It would have been the first time that a representative of an atheist advocacy group had spoken at a...