LEGAL FRAMEWORK

The constitution provides for the free profession and practice of religion, subject to public order and morality. The constitution references “the Most Holy Trinity” and “our divine Lord, Jesus Christ” and stipulates the state shall hold the name of God in reverence and honor and respect religion. The constitution requires the President of the country, judges, and members of the Council of State to swear a religious oath, which begins with a reference to “Almighty God.” It prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief and states, “The State guarantees not to endow any religion.”

The constitution stipulates every religious denomination has the right to manage its own affairs, own and acquire property, and maintain institutions for religious or charitable purposes. It prohibits the diversion of property of any religious denomination except for necessary works of public utility and upon payment of compensation. The constitution states legislation providing for government aid to schools shall not discriminate among schools under the management of different religious denominations nor affect the right of a child to attend any school receiving public money without attending religious instruction at that school.

A “statement of truth” may be used in civil proceedings in place of affidavits and statutory declarations sworn on a religious oath. The document must contain a statement that the person making the statement of truth has an honest belief that the stated facts are true. Religious oaths or affirmations are still required when a witness is giving oral evidence in court. The statement of truth may not be used in criminal proceedings.

The law forbids incitement of others to hatred based on religion, among other categories, and carries a maximum penalty of up to two years’ imprisonment and a maximum fine of €25,400 ($28,000). The law does not address or define hate crimes other than incitement of others, although a hate motive is an aggravating factor that judges may consider on a discretionary basis at sentencing for any criminal offense.

There is no legal requirement for religious groups to register with the government, nor is there any formal mechanism for government recognition of a religious group. Religious groups may apply to the Office of the Revenue Commissioners (the tax authority) as a charity to receive tax exemptions, and the groups must operate exclusively for charitable purposes, which under the law may include “the advancement of religion.” The law requires all charitable organizations carrying out activities in the country to register with and provide certain information relating to their organization to the Charities Regulator, a government-appointed independent authority. The regulator maintains a public register of charitable organizations and ensures their compliance with the law. Organizations must apply their income and property solely toward the promotion of their main charitable object, as set out in their governing instruments (such as a constitution, memorandum and articles of association, deed of trust, or rules). There is no category for the advancement of nonreligious philosophical beliefs.

Under the law, individual medical professionals may opt out of participating in certain legal procedures, such as abortion, on grounds of conscience. Institutions may not refuse to perform such procedures, however.

Under the constitution, the Department of Education provides funding to privately owned-and-managed primary schools – most of which are affiliated with religious groups, particularly the Catholic Church – referred to as “national schools” or simply as primary schools. Most children receive their elementary-level education at these privately owned schools. The government pays most of the building and administrative costs, teachers’ salaries, and a set amount per pupil. Under the Employment Equality Act, institutions set up with the purpose of promoting religion are exempt from equality legislation in hiring when “those duties could not reasonably be performed by a person who does not have the relevant [religious] characteristic.”

Approximately half of secondary schools are religiously affiliated. The government funds religiously affiliated secondary schools.

Vocational schools are state run and nondenominational.

Denominational schools, which comprise the majority of national schools, are under the patronage of a single religious community. They provide religious education according to traditions, practices, and beliefs of the specified religious community. Interdenominational schools are national schools under the patronage or trusteeship of more than one faith community. Such schools provide for a variety of religious education opportunities. There are also two types of multidenominational national schools at the primary school level: schools that provide education about religious beliefs but do not provide religious education as formation during the school day (parents/guardians may arrange for denominational religious education outside school hours in such schools); and schools that provide education about religions and also provide some faith formation for different denominations, depending on parental requests, during the school day.

In funding schools, the constitution stipulates the state shall have due regard “for the rights of parents, especially in the matter of religious and moral formation.” The government permits but does not require religious instruction, faith-based classes, or general religion classes in national schools. Although religious instruction is part of the curriculum of most schools, parents may exempt their children from such instruction. Religious schools teach about their religion, while multidenominational schools, where the school’s patron is not a religious body, generally teach about religion in a broader context. Students may opt out and sit in a classroom where religious instruction is not being conducted. The Catholic Church certifies teachers of religion classes in Catholic schools.

Patrons of national schools, who are usually members of the religious groups and are affiliated with religious organizations with which the school is associated, manage the schools themselves or appoint a board of management to do so. Patrons often provide land for schools and contribute to building and administrative costs.

By law, Catholic national schools are not allowed to discriminate on religious grounds when making admissions decisions. According to the law, national schools under the patronage of other religious groups may discriminate in admissions on religious grounds to preserve their distinct religious identities, but only when the schools are oversubscribed. The law prohibits discrimination in admissions based on religious beliefs in secondary schools.

The WRC hears cases of reported workplace discrimination, including claims based on religion. The WRC may refer cases for mediation, investigate these cases, or decide the case itself. If the adjudicating officer finds there has been discrimination, he or she may order compensation for the effects of discrimination and/or corrective action. Litigants may appeal WRC decisions in the courts.

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) is an independent public body accountable to parliament whose stated purpose is to protect and promote human rights and equality and to build a culture of respect for human rights, including religious freedom. The commission works at the policy level to review the effectiveness of human rights and equality law, as well as public policy and practice. It also works with communities, including religious and other civil society groups, to monitor and report on the public’s experience of human rights, religious freedom, and equality.

The country is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

GOVERNMENT PRACTICES

During the year, school patrons, who are generally affiliated with religious denominations, continued to define the ethos of schools and to determine the development and implementation of the religious education curriculum in primary schools. Curricula varied by school and could include teaching about the patron’s religion, the religious history of the country, or an overview of world religions. Atheist Ireland continued to criticize the government for primarily delivering moral formation through religion and not offering students moral education outside of religion classes.

Atheist Ireland and the media continued to report incidents of school authorities giving preferential treatment, such as homework exemptions, to students in Catholic national schools that engaged in activities such as singing in religious choirs or performing altar services in church. Atheist Ireland continued to report that some school authorities told parents that, contrary to law, their children could not opt out of religion classes; some schools did not offer supervised study time or another subject to students wishing to exercise their right not to attend religious instruction.

The government stated it continued to facilitate patrons’ efforts to open more schools with multidenominational patronage. During the year, national schools were 88 percent Catholic, 5 percent Church of Ireland, 5 percent multidenominational, 1 percent other religious groups, and 1 percent not religiously affiliated. No new multidenominational national schools opened during the year. The Department of Education said it considered parental preferences and projected demand when deciding which patrons would be allowed to sponsor the new schools. A separate process, the “Schools Reconfiguration for Diversity,” continued; it had the aim of accelerating the creation of multidenominational schools in the country, in line with parental preference and the government’s stated commitment to having a total of 400 multidenominational schools by 2030, out of approximately 3,300 public schools (i.e., 12 percent) in the country.

On October 29, Atheist Ireland issued a statement saying that the state establishing 400 multidenominational schools throughout the country would still leave many parents with no choice but to send their children to the only local school, which would likely be under Catholic patronage.

Atheist Ireland also reported that in January, it made a complaint to the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Oireachtas (parliament) Committee on Public Accounts that said the Department of Education misused public funds by allocating them to schools that did not comply with the constitutional funding requirement to respect parental rights and allow children to attend state-funded schools without attending religious instruction.

In accordance with a 2011 government initiative to create more diversity and inclusiveness in the primary school system through a combination of divestment and construction of new schools, authorities transferred two schools from Catholic patronage to the Education and Training Board (ETB) during the 2021/22 school year, compared with one school during the prior term. The ETB managed and operated coeducational, multidenominational national schools, post-primary schools, and further education colleges.

Parents and others continued to complain about the law forbidding Catholic national schools from taking students’ religion into account when making admissions decisions while allowing other national schools to continue to do so. They said the government should give assurances that when a Catholic parish or diocese divested a school, students whose parents wished them to receive a Catholic education would get priority at schools remaining under Catholic patronage.

In rural areas, parents continued to report that finding non-Catholic national schools was difficult.

Catholic religious orders remained affiliated with 20 of the country’s 45 government-run hospitals.

In September, authorities reimprisoned Enoch Burke for continuing to ignore a 2022 court order that prohibited him from entering his school’s campus; he remained in prison at year’s end. Burke taught history, politics, and German at Wilson Hospital School, a national school under the patronage of the Church of Ireland in the Meath and Kildare Diocese. He had refused the school’s request to use a transgender student’s preferred pronouns, saying that doing so went against the teaching of the Church of Ireland. In 2022, a court sent Burke to prison for contempt until such time as he agreed to comply with the court order to refrain from entering campus, but authorities released him in January without purging his contempt charge.

Several state agencies, including IHREC, WRC, and the police’s National Diversity and Integration Unit (GNDIU), continued to enforce equality legislation and work on behalf of minority religious groups. According to GNDIU representatives, GNDIU’s liaison officers continued to engage regularly with immigrant minority religious groups and their advocates to inform them of police services and to educate them on their rights. These groups included the Dublin City Interfaith Forum, Federation for Victim Assistance, Garda Traveller advisory group, and Immigrant Council of Ireland.

During the year, the National Police Service continued to implement initiatives contained in the National Action Plan Against Racism 2023-2027 (published in March) that focused on improving the identification, reporting, investigation, and prosecution of hate crimes, including those based on religion. The service’s official website further clarified, “Religion includes ‘non-believers’.” The National Police Service declared it remained “committed to keeping all communities, including religious groups, safe through active engagement.”

NGOs, including the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Immigrant Council of Ireland, Antiracism Network Ireland, National Steering Group against Hate Crime, and European Network against Racism Ireland, as well as IHREC, again advocated better monitoring of hate crimes, including religiously motivated incidents, as well as legislation against hate crimes, more stringent laws against hate speech, and action to ensure authorities take prejudice into account as an aggravating factor in sentencing criminals.

Draft hate crime legislation remained pending before the upper house of parliament at year’s end that would establish a category of hate crimes and impose a heavier penalty on an offender whose commission of a relevant offense was accompanied by a hate motive against an individual based on a number of factors, including religion. Civil society organizations expressed support for the legislation, but critics said it was overly broad and could lead to the criminalization of religious beliefs and church teaching.

On January 29, Prime Minister Varadkar and other senior government officials participated in the National Holocaust Day Memorial commemoration. In his remarks, Varadkar said “We must ensure that future generations understand and recognize the ideologies, the actions and beliefs that led to atrocities such as the Holocaust.” The NGO Holocaust Education Trust Ireland, in association with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, and Youth, the Office for the Promotion of Migrant Integration, and the Dublin City Council, organized the event, which included readings, survivors’ remembrances, and music, as well as the lighting of six candles symbolizing the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust.

On October 12, Deputy Prime Minister (Tanaiste) and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin said Israel had a duty to protect civilians in Gaza during the conflict stemming from the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, adding, “Our value system is one that does not in any way support any collective punishment of an entire population. That’s not acceptable from our perspective.” Israeli officials and some online media commentators suggested his remarks were antisemitic. On October 13, Martin rejected that characterization, telling media outlets, “Ireland has a strong reputation in respect of its adherence to human rights. We’re subscribed to all the antisemitic conventions, and we work with others to root out antisemitism.” He added, “And we have a Jewish community in Ireland that we cherish, and our constitution cherishes the Jewish tradition within Ireland. I think we have to separate that from legitimate criticism from time to time in terms of Israeli government policy in terms of the Palestinian question. In democracies, there is always room for legitimate debate and questioning.”

On November 7, Prime Minister Varadkar told parliament he was “concerned about rising antisemitism in Europe and around the world, some of it sparked by the events in the Middle East. That is not justified. I am concerned about rising Islamophobia as well.”

Speaking in parliament on November 28, Minister for European Affairs Peter Burke said; “Across the world, including in Ireland, instances of hate speech, disinformation, Islamophobia, and antisemitism have been increasing, especially online.”

The country is a member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.