THE Government is to be questioned on its human rights record when it presents a progress report to the UN.
The Association of Irish Humanists has written to the UN's human rights commission accusing the Government of discriminating against the non religious community in education.
By leaving education largely in the hands of church owned institutions, the State has left its largest minority (the non religious) in a "vulnerable and unenviable" position, the association claims.
Denominational schools can discriminate against employment on religious grounds, it says. They can also discriminate on religious grounds against the acceptance of children.
There are only 14 multi denominational schools in the State, against almost 4 000 denominational schools.
AIH has accused Labour Ministers of perpetuating this discrimination by writing the present situation into law.
The Minister for Education plans in forthcoming legislation to give the churches the right not to employ teachers of a different religion.
Meanwhile the Minister for Equality and Law Reform Mr Taylor, has said that denominational schools will be exempted from upcoming legislation on equality of access.
"At present, and for the foreseeable future, if nothing is done non religious parents must either risk their children being turned down at their local school or deceive the school authorities by baptising their children into a religious faith contrary to their beliefs," the president of AIH Mr Dick Spicer, says.
Ms Breathnach says she has no plans to give the churches the right in law to remove teachers from posts on the grounds of religion.
In answer to a Dail question last week, she says her aim is to ensure the denominational character of a school has an impact on staffing only in a "reasonable and proportionate way which is objectively necessary for the protection of the ethos of the school".
The Minister says the legislation will strike a "fair and reasonable" balance between the rights and obligations of parents wanting to send their children to schools with a particular ethos, patrons promoting that ethos, and students and teachers who do not subscribe to that ethos.
