Atheist Ireland granted special UN status in bid to promote ‘secular government’

Irish organisation is believed to be the first national atheist campaign group to gain such status

Michael Nugent and Jane Donnelly of Atheist Ireland. They said they would be highlighting religious discrimination in Irish schools at a meeting of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child next month. Photograph Nick Bradshaw

Patsy McGarry
Sat Dec 31 2022 - 

Atheist Ireland has been granted special consultative status at the United Nations in what is believed to be a first for a national campaign group of its type.

“It means we can engage with the UN Economic and Social Council, Human Rights Council, General Assembly, and Secretariat, in order to advance our aims,” said the group’s chair Michael Nugent and human rights officer Jane Donnelly in a joint statement.

“On January 24th and 25th, we will attend our first UN session with special consultative status, when the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child will be questioning Ireland in Geneva. We will be highlighting religious discrimination in Irish schools including the lack of objective sex education,” they said.

While there is at least one international atheist group with consultative status at the UN, it is understood Atheist Ireland is the first national-level atheist organisation to secure such status.

Atheist Ireland was founded in November 2008 to to promote secularism, rationality, pluralism and human rights in Ireland. It advocates for atheism and reason over superstition and supernaturalism, and an ethical, secular society where the State does not support or finance or give special treatment to any religion.

In recent years it has made over 20 submissions to various international bodies on such as the elimination of racial discrimination, of discrimination against women and to UN special rapporteurs on freedom of religion and minority issues.

In Ireland the group has worked together with the Evangelical Alliance and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Ireland on secular issues.

“We at Atheist Ireland are proud to be the first national-level atheist organisation to be granted special consultative status at the United Nations. It reflects the hard work of many Atheist Ireland members and supporters over the past 14 years. We will use this opportunity to continue to advance our goal of promoting ethical, secular government based on human rights, where states treat everybody equally regardless of their religious or nonreligious philosophical beliefs,” Mr Nugent and Ms Donnelly said.