Author : Michael Nugent

Changes to religion question for census 2021

Atheist Ireland has proposed changes to the religion question in the Irish census in 2021. We will be taking part in discussions about this on a subgroup of the census advisory group. Our proposals are that the question should be optional, should ask whether people practice a religion, should not prejudice the answer with preprinted […]

New guidelines promised on opting out of religion

Atheist Ireland has written to the Minister for Education seeking an input into the new guidelines that he has committed to issuing for children opting out of religion classes in State-run ETB schools. The Minister was responding to questions by RTE’s Emma O’Kelly about documents that Atheist Ireland obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. […]

More nonreligious than all minority religions combined

Atheist Ireland welcomes today’s census report on religion published by the Central Statistics Office. We are increasingly optimistic that a secular Ireland is inevitable, free of religious privilege and religious discrimination against any citizens. The census results on religion broke a significant barrier – more Irish people now have no religion (468,400) than members of […]

Ending blasphemy laws in Ireland and Pakistan

I gave this talk yesterday at the TCD Law Review Panel. The other speakers were Dr Ali Selim, William Richardson and Neville Cox. I will start by welcoming that the Government is finally proposing a date for a referendum to remove the offence of blasphemy from our Constitution, nearly a decade after Dermot Ahern surprised […]

Promoting the right to die

I delivered this talk today at the seventh Congress of the International Association of Freethought in Paris, France. I am particularly pleased to speak here in Paris about the right to die. I first got involved with the Right to Die movement eight years ago, when my late wife Anne Holliday was diagnosed with terminal […]

Tipperary ETB Failing to Respect Human Rights

Atheist Ireland has prepared a comprehensive report on how Tipperary Education and Training Board (ETB), through its Central Technical Institute (CTI) in Clonmel, is failing in its statutory obligation to promote and protect the rights of minorities in their schools, based on the details of a recent case at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC). You can […]

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