A school in Co. Leitrim under fire from the parent of one of its pupils has said that its Catholic 
ethos is “an integral part of the curriculum and day-to-day life of the school”.
In a statement, school principal David O’Farrell said this ethos “includes a short prayer at the start and the end of the day”.
The controversy involves the Dutch atheist father of a pupil who discovered that his five-year-old son had been reciting prayers several times a day at Drumlease Catholic Primary School in Dromahair, Co Leitrim.
The father, Mr Martijn Leenheer said both he and the child’s mother had opted out of Catholic religious instruction for their child.
He said that he was considering suing the school for what he called the school’s breach of its agreement with him.
In response, a statement from the school said: “The mission statement of the school makes it clear that a Catholic ethos is an integral part of the curriculum and day-to-day life of the school. This includes a short prayer at the start and the end of the day.
“The school clearly embraces and cherishes all children equally, irrespective of having religious beliefs or having none,” the statement concluded.
The son now attends the Educate Together school in Sligo. But Mr Leenheer is considering taking his complaint to the Equality Authority or the Ombudsman for Children.
“I feel the school didn’t respond to my concerns and they are still not responding to me.
“My belief is that the school should be responsible for supervising children if they want to opt out because the way it stands at the moment, they ask me if I want to opt out, I say, ‘yes’ and basically nothing happens,” he told the Irish Independent.
Jane Donnelly, education policy officer with Atheist Ireland described the right to opt out in Irish schools as “impractical and illusory”.
“In my view we are in breach of our international obligations. The opt-out clause must be practical and it must suit the wishes of parents, but our opt-out clause just sits there in the education act.
“There are no statutory guidelines with it, and it is not sufficient to guarantee the right to respect philosophical viewpoints such as Martijn’s,” she said.
Last November, the Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) said that the State’s failure to provide children whose parents do not want them to learn a religion with a viable alternative might constitute a breach of several international human rights documents on this basis.providing, a conference has been told.
At an IHRC conference held in Dublin, Dr Alison Mawhinney of Queen’s University, Belfast gave a paper citing a controversial decision by the European Court of Human Rights which found that Norway could be in breach of the Convention on Human Rights because the opt-out provision for religion class did not “protect the parents’ freedom of thought”.
The Commission’s chairman, Maurice Manning, told the conference that there were changing expectations in Ireland concerning education and religion and that universal human rights principles are the common denominator that can bring diverse views together.
He also told the conference: “To put to somewhat baldly, the core issue to be discussed concerns whether religion has a place in the classroom and, if so, what role should it play”.
The Commission has invited interested parties to respond to its submission by the end of January.
Later this year, Ireland is to appear before the UN Human Rights Commission and the place of religion in schools will come under scrutiny.