At 6.30 pm this Tuesday Atheist Ireland will be meeting the Taoiseach and the Minister for Education, as part of the dialogue process between Government and religious and nonreligious philosophical bodies.
This will be the first time ever that an atheist advocacy group has met the Taoiseach. It will mark the next phase of our ongoing campaign for an ethical, secular State that respects equally everybody’s rights.
We will be bringing an atheist teacher, an atheist parent and an atheist student to tell the Taoiseach and Education Minister at first hand their experience of religious discrimination in Irish schools.
Also, between 12 and 3 pm on Tuesday, we will be holding a briefing session for TDs and Senators in the Boardroom in Buswells Hotel, about the issues we will be raising with the Taoiseach, including:
- How Ireland breaches the human rights of the 340,000 people who did not identify with any religion in the last census, as well as members of minority faiths.
- How the Irish Constitution, education system and laws and practices systemically discriminate against atheists in favour of religions, spiritualists and humanists.
- The specific changes needed to respect equally the right of all citizens to freedom of conscience, religion or belief; equality before the law and freedom from discrimination.
- The relevant constitutional articles, international human rights treaties, and judgments of the European Court of Human Rights that show what the state has to do to fulfill our obligations under human rights law.
For the briefing sessions with TDs and Senators in Buswells, we will be giving short formal presentations on the hour at 12, 1, 2 and 3, and we will be there to answer questions for the rest of the time.
Please email or phone your local TDs (firstname.surname@oireachtas.ie, 01-6183000) and tell them, as a citizen and constituent, that you would like them to attend this important briefing session.
Good luck with this important meeting.
I’d love to be there to offer the perspective of a parent who has two children in the French educational system – a system which of course is 100% secular.
Would it be worth trying to find a French person who has had kids in the system and maybe even been through it themselves as a child?
I’m willing to contribute if it is of assistance.
On a side-note, it is sad that this important work seems to attract far less attention than the ugly Myers spat.
This stuff is really important; internal spats between atheist activists less so, although I understand entirely the level of hurt contained in Myers’ ridiculous and offensive allegations.
The meeting this week is very significant and Atheism Ireland need to use every moment as profitably as possible.
I like to think things are better in the UK – but this week we had a Labour MP forced to apologise for thinking nuns might not necessarily make the best teachers.
Michael, this is really exciting and really reflects Atheist Ireland’s persistence & vision. Kudos, many times over.