David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support amendment No. 2 to amendment No. 13, which goes to the point I was making earlier that there are certain limited numbers of positions where a commitment to religion is significant.

With regard to teachers who are atheists but happy to teach religion and prepare children for their Holy Communion, I am not surprised by this. It explains the phenomenon of these children making their first Holy Communion, which does not exist in the Anglican church, dressed up as Cinderella, with fake tan and so on. Of course, this will happen if they are taught by people who do not believe in it. Teaching religion is different to teaching geography or history. We all know that in 1066 something happened and that London is the capital of Britain. There is very little argument about that. One would hardly be able to teach geography if one thought Dublin was the capital of Britain.

Most national schools have a number of teachers. Surely, it is possible even in this day and age to find at least one teacher with a sprinkling of religion to teach the religion class. Otherwise, we should abandon it. I am strongly of the view that having atheists teaching children religion is ridiculous, unless they are teaching it in a historical and cultural context. Children will pick that up. I believe that in many of these ceremonies there is less and less spirituality. Families are spending enormous amounts of money on tawdry trappings, which have nothing whatever to do with the religion. It is perfectly obvious to me that the children are not being properly taught religion and that their parents do not know the first thing about religion if that is how they approach the sacraments.