Atheist Ireland sent a range of policy questions to political parties and individual candidates. 
Amongst the questions they asked were whether parties or candidates would support a referendum to remove religious references from the Constitution, whether they would support legislation to prevent hospitals from having a religious ethos and whether churches should pay taxes.
They also ask politicians whether they would vote to repeal section 37 of the Employment Equality Act, which allows religious institutions like schools and hospitals to adopt hiring practices which allow them to maintain their ethos.
Sinn Féin were the party which responded with the most militantly secular responses, not just in terms of their policy stances, but in their tone.
For example, in response to its question on education, which asks candidates whether they support access to non-religious schools, Sinn Féin responded that they believed that “the separation of Church and State must be completed”.
They added: “Church control of primary schools is a legacy of the old era of ecclesiastical power and control.”
Their answer on the question regarding removing religious references from the Constitution was somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, they said would support a referendum to remove religious references from the Constitution.
But on the other hand it says it would “establish an all-Ireland Constitutional Convention, directly elected by the people” which would” involve consultation at grassroots level and ensure participatory governance”.
Its goal would be to produce a new constitution, “fully reflective of the values and aspirations of the Irish people today”. It fails to consider the distinct possibility that “Irish people today” might not want to remove all religious references from the Constitution.
It says that it would support legislation to prevent publicly funded hospitals from “operating based on a religious ethos”. Sinn Féin would also support repealing section 37, and they would be open to forcing churches to pay tax.
Among the candidates the best answers came from Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar and Lucinda Creighton, who both stood up for the right of religious hospitals and schools to retain public funding, the retention of section 37 and the reference to God in the preamble to the Constitution.
Leo Varadkar gave an especially good response on the issue of references to religion in the Constitution: “The only religious reference that I am aware of is the preamble and is not in the Constitution itself.
“I am not a religious person by it does not bother me to have a reference to God in the preamble. I don’t think that religion is a bad thing or that it should be banished from public life.
“I prefer an inclusive approach the respects that some people are believers and others are not. I have no time for fundamentalism, religious or secular.”
