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| 28-August-2026 |
The pre-session meeting took place this week in Geneva. The full review date is 10 November. Here are Atheist Ireland’s recommendations in our submission to the process.
1. Discrimination: recognise philosophical beliefs
Amend the Equal Status Act to protect philosophical beliefs from discrimination in line with Article 18 of the ICCPR.
Reasons: Ireland’s anti-discrimination laws do not protect philosophical beliefs, and nothing material has changed since the last UPR review.
Article 40.1 of the Constitution states that all citizens shall be held equal before the law. However, Section 3-2(e) of the Equal Status Act 2000 defines the religion ground only by reference to religious belief or the absence of religious belief.
This does not expressly protect philosophical beliefs and is inconsistent with General Comment 22, which protects theistic, non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, as well as the right not to profess any religion or belief.
2. Discrimination: review equality laws
Amend the Equal Status and Employment Equality Acts to remove all forms of discrimination on the ground of religion.
Reasons: Section 7 of the Equal Status Act allows publicly funded second-level schools with a religious ethos to prefer co-religionists. They can also refuse access where they believe and can prove a child will undermine their ethos.
Since the introduction of the Education Admissions to Schools Act 2018 most primary-level schools can no longer give preference to co-religionists. We welcome this. However, they can still refuse access where they believe and can prove a child would undermine their ethos.
Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act obliges teachers in publicly-funded schools to uphold the ethos of the patron.
3. Discrimination: review solemnising of marriages
Remove all discrimination against secular bodies introduced in the Civil Registration Amendment Act 2012.
Reasons: Irish law discriminates in the solemnisation of marriages, purportedly to protect the institution of marriage.
Under section 3 of the Civil Registration Amendment Act, a body qualifies as a secular body only if it has at least 50 members, has been a charity for at least five years, does not promote a political cause, and has principal objects that are secular, ethical and humanist. None of these conditions applies to religious bodies.
A key restriction is that a secular body that solemnises marriages cannot promote a political cause. This means that the Humanist Association of Ireland, because it can nominate solemnisers, can no longer promote political causes such as reform of the Constitution, equality law, or the education system.
4. Discrimination: protect religious minority groups
Improve implementation of laws against discrimination for members of religious minority groups, particularly those with migrants and ethnic or racial minorities.
Reason: Articles 18, 26, and 27 of the ICCPR protect faith-based religious minorities through several overlapping guarantees. Articles 2 and 5 of CERD require the State to address overlapping racial or ethnic discrimination. Two such religious minorities in Ireland with migrant members are the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Ireland.
5. Freedom of religion or belief: remove religious oaths
Commit to holding a referendum to amend the Constitution to remove compulsory religious declarations for public office and replace them with a single neutral declaration compatible with freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief.
Reason: Ireland’s Constitution requires religious oaths for the President, Judges, and members of the Council of State. These provisions discriminate against non-religious citizens, and against anyone whose conscience does not permit a religious declaration, by attaching religious conditions to public office.
6. Education: provide objective education and nondiscriminatory exemptions
Ensure that children and parents have real access to neutral and objective education, in accordance with General Comment 22 on Article 18 of the ICCPR, including through non-denominational schools and non-discriminatory exemptions from religious instruction/education.
Reasons: Ireland has not opened non-denominational secular schools or ensured access to neutral and objective curricula. It continues to ignore repeated concluding observations over the years from the UN and Council of Europe human rights bodies.
A Convention on Education has recently been established. However, no groups representing philosophical beliefs have been invited as stakeholders, despite longstanding UN concern about freedom of conscience, discrimination and equality in education.
Under Article 42.4 of the Constitution, the State ‘provides for’ rather than directly provides education. In practice, the State has chosen to do so through private patron bodies.
Boards of Management must uphold the ‘Characteristic Spirit’ (ethos) of the patron of the school. There are no non-denominational schools with a secular ethos. The ethos is not confined to the patron’s programme. It can permeate the entire curriculum.
At second level the State’s Religious Education course is not a neutral and objective course about religions and beliefs. Denominational schools may also integrate their own patron’s programme into that course and present it as suitable for all children.
The broader structure of the system was outlined by the European Court of Human Rights in Louise O’Keeffe v Ireland, where the Court held that the State could not avoid its Convention obligations by delegating them to private bodies or individuals.
Article 44.2.4 of the Constitution protects the right of a child to attend a publicly funded school without attending religious instruction. Section 30(2)(e) of the Education Act 1998 reflects this principle for all schools.
Section 62-7(n) of the Education Admissions to schools Act 2018 requires schools to state in their admissions policies the arrangements for not attending religious instruction.
However, the Minister leaves it up to each school to implement this legislation according to its own ethos. In practice, schools have refused to comply with this law and the State has ignored this issue. All of this results in the following discriminatory treatment:No access to a neutral and objective studying environment.
- No inspection of patron’s religion or ethics programmes.
- Our children are left sitting in the religion class as no supervision is provided.
- No other subject is offered during this time and consequently our children get less teaching time because of our families’ conscientious objections.
- At second level our children receive fewer exam points, as Religion is an exam subject.
- Religion is integrated into the State curriculum.
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