Equality Laws

Atheist Ireland campaigns for secular laws that treat everyone equally, regardless of religious or nonreligious beliefs. Current Irish law allows religious discrimination in key areas, despite constitutional protections for freedom of conscience that extend beyond religion.

Two main laws—the Employment Equality Act 1998 and the Equal Status Act 2000—permit state-funded institutions like schools, hospitals, and training colleges to discriminate on religious grounds.

Under Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act, staff can be penalised or excluded if they are seen as undermining a religious ethos. Teachers in publicly funded schools must legally uphold the ethos of their school’s patron body, usually religious.
The Equal Status Act extends this discrimination to children. At primary level, schools can refuse access if a child is seen as undermining the school’s ethos. At second level, they can give preference to co-religionists under the same rationale. This language appears in virtually every school admission policy and causes real fear among parents.

These exemptions are not proportionate. They claim to protect freedom of religion but actually undermine freedom of conscience by excluding those with nonreligious philosophical convictions from equal protection. The Acts refer only to “religion” and frames atheists and humanists as people who “do not have” a religion, rather than as people with positive beliefs. Atheist Ireland recommends amending these Acts to refer to “religion or beliefs”, explicitly including nonreligious philosophical convictions. This would align Irish law with the EU Equality Directive and our international human rights obligations.