Dear Minister McEntee,
I refer to Adjudication Reference ADJ-00031432 from the Workplace Relations Commission, which decided that your Department unlawfully discriminated against me because I am an atheist, contrary to the Employment Equality Acts 1998-2021. This 1st March 2023 decision included the following statement:
“I order that the respondent review the process of appointing military chaplains to ensure compliance with the Employment Equality Act …”
The respondent in this case was the Department of Defence, and following the publication of this decision the Defence Forces Chaplaincy Service (DFCS) Review Board was established with Lt Col Padraig Brennan as the President. Unfortunately, rather than providing an objective view of how best military chaplaincy can serve the interests of the Defence Forces consistent with employment equality law, this Board has suffered from the same inappropriate denominational influence that the Workplace Relations Commission highlighted. Heretofore, State-funded military chaplains have not been appointed based on selection of the best candidate for the job, but rather they have been unlawfully appointed based on the whims of Roman Catholic votaries. Similarly, the conclusions presented by the DFCS Review Board have not been driven by the best interests of the Defence Forces, but rather by the whims of a Roman Catholic votary.
Under the direction of Lt Col Brennan, the DFCS Review Board initially took inputs from a number of religious and secular perspectives. This included submissions from Atheist Ireland, from myself as the complainant in the above referenced litigation, and from a humanist military chaplain that I introduced to Lt Col Brennan (Cpt Marie-Claire Khadij, Canadian Armed Forces). Other inclusive military chaplaincies were also consulted, such as that in The Netherlands.
While there were no secular representatives appointed to the DFCS Review Board, there were two Roman Catholic priests who were members. One was Fr Pascal Hanrahan, who is Head Chaplain of the Defence Forces. The views of Fr Hanrahan on secular perspectives were made very clear to me during my meeting with the Board. Fr Hanrahan also made these views clear to Lt Col Brennan in an email of 17th April 2023, after Lt Col Brennan had a discussion about secular chaplaincies with representatives of Atheist Ireland:
“I am afraid that if we overly engage with atheist/humanist agencies, we will get bogged down in all kinds of battles.”
This comment was to set the tone for the DFCS Review Board. There was no perceived problem with the Board including two Roman Catholic priests as members, while they excluded any secular representation from their membership. Conversely, even talking to secular representatives was considered a problem worth worrying about.
Lt Col Brennan issued a completed DFCS Review Report on 16th June 2023 to the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, Major General Adrian Ó Murchú. Subsequent to that, control of the DFCS Review passed to Fr Hanrahan and the overt hostility towards non-religious perspectives became more pronounced. For example, consider the materials that were provided by Cpt Khadij to the DFCS Review Board. Within these Canadian military chaplaincy materials, there is absolutely nothing but the utmost respect demonstrated to chaplains and others of various religions, including the faithful reproduction of symbols for Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists and Unitarians. Fr Hanrahan responded to the broad set of Canadian Armed Forces materials on 26th October 2023 to report that he was:
“… struck by the sheer lack of tolerance for that which is other than humanist … if I choose to wear a cross on my uniform and Imam Ali wears a Crescent and Rabbi Leonard wears a Star of David, I fear that the three of us could be offended by the requirement to remain neutral and give up our distinctive identity for say a requirement to wear a Happy Human symbol. Identity is so important, particularly in the military …”
Needless to day, there was no requirement within any of the Canadian materials for chaplains to wear a “Happy Human” symbol, and there was no suggestion that humanists were “tolerated” any differently than those who are “other than humanist”. This is just naked paranoid delusion about anything other than Roman Catholic domination. These Canadian materials were deemed to display a “sheer lack of tolerance” even though they included an image of the Buddhist chaplain Lt Yuasa, wearing a ceremonial khata. In fairness, perhaps Fr Hanrahan didn’t recognise the Buddhist ceremonial khata, since he has spent years presiding over a chaplaincy that unlawfully excludes all non-Christians, while he lectures others on their “sheer lack of tolerance”. It may be the case that Fr Hanrahan feels “identity is so important” in the military, but it seems that this sentiment is restricted only to those religious identities that he approves of.
This is the person who then took control of the DFCS Review Board. The military chaplaincy that Fr Hanrahan currently heads, remains unlawfully restricted to the votaries of organisations that discriminate against women and gay people. It is not an accident that the currently military chaplaincy in Ireland is entirely male. Whereas the unlawful process by which Fr Hanrahan was appointed to his role is the problem that your Department was ordered to remedy by the Workplace Relations Commission, it seems unlikely that Fr Hanrahan will promote an effective solution while he clearly retains the views and attitudes that caused this problem to arise in the first instance.
Whereas Fr Hanrahan took over reporting on the work of the Board to Deputy Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces Major General Adrian Ó Murchú, in fact Major General Ó Murchú had also already made his views on this matter known. In an email of 9th March 2023, Major General Ó Murchú reported to your Department that my case was hampering his ability to appoint lay and female chaplains.
“I see that Mr Hamill is in the news this morning … his case in relation to Chaplains is hampering our ability to appoint any chaplains, including lay/female chaplains”
In fact, my case implied no such impediment. What continues to hamper the ability of Major General Adrian Ó Murchú to appoint lay and female chaplains is the longstanding unlawful sectarian discrimination within Defence Forces recruitment processes, whereby Roman Catholic bishops award publicly funded positions to their co-religionist votaries. Conversely, implementing the order of the Workplace Relations Commission that resulted from my case is what would allow the appointment of lay and female chaplains.
Moreover, Major General Ó Murchú had previously communicated his prejudice on this issue to your Department. In his email of 3rd August 2022, he informed the Secretary General of your Department that the military chaplaincy in Ireland is only for those who “believe in God”. Given that the same military chaplaincy is limited to Christians only, it is clear which god that Major General Ó Murchú had in mind. He did not indicate how non-Christian members of our Defence Forces should interpret such comments but he went on to ask the Secretary General:
“What would an atheist chaplain do all day to earn their pay? Would an atheist ‘Chaplain’ spend their day trying to convince service members who do believe in God that they are barking up the wrong tree?”
There is no evidence that Major General Ó Murchú ever wondered if Roman Catholic chaplains spend their day trying to convince non-Catholic service members to become baptised Catholics in order to avoid eternal torment in fire. Neither does Major General Ó Murchú explain why he feels it is more likely that an atheist chaplain would behave inappropriately in this manner than a Roman Catholic priest. It is difficult to interpret these attitudes as anything other than bigotry.
The outcome of such a compromised process was then entirely predictable. On 26th February 2024, Fr Hanrahan wrote to Lt Col Brennan as follows:
“Following the endorsement of the recommendations by the September Chaplains Conference I requested a slot to brief the Defence Board on the DFCS Review. I was informed at relatively short notice that I could brief at the February Conference in Athlone …”
Fr Hanrahan sought prior endorsement of the recommendations from the existing unlawfully appointed chaplains, but did not seek any views on these recommendations from the secular representatives that the DFCS Board had approached to solicit submissions. Moreover, Fr Hanrahan took it upon himself to represent the outputs of the DFCS Review to the Defence Board, even though it was Lt Col Brennan who had been appointed as President of the DFCS Review. In his response of 27th February 2024, Lt Col Brennan made this point very clearly to Fr Hanrahan:
“As the Board President and author of the report, and someone independent of the Chaplaincy, I believe I should have been briefing the relevant authorities on our report … I am confused as to how any of the recommendations will be implemented without even a conversation with the person who wrote them.”
On 1st March 2023, your Department was ordered by the Workplace Relations Commission to remedy your unlawful employment practices by reviewing “the process of appointing military chaplains to ensure compliance with the Employment Equality Act”. In response, Lt Col Brennan was appointed as President of the DFCS Review Board as “someone independent of the Chaplaincy”. Now more than three years since the decision of the Workplace Relations Commission, as you have recently reported to the Dáil your Department has made no changes whatsoever to “the process of appointing military chaplains”. Instead, this process has been taken over by those responsible for implementing the unlawful religious discrimination, and who have continued to display their prejudice towards the non-religious throughout the process.
This situation is entirely unacceptable and in the interests of all non-Christian members of the Defence Forces you should remedy it immediately. The non-religious members of our Defence Forces deserve better than the disparaging manner in which their interests have been discarded, even after a finding of unlawful religious discrimination.
Yours, etc.