No evidence of political bias against non-Catholics

WHAT on earth is Maurice Fitzgerald on about?

He demands to know (Letters, August 22) why there aren’t more non-Catholics in the Dáil and accuses the South of hypocrisy (presumably because many here, with much justification, have long seen the North as an anti-Catholic sectarian statelet for most of its history).

Is Mr Fitzgerald suggesting that non-Catholics are somehow officially prevented from entering public office here?

I hope not, as he would be contradicting himself when he says “there’s no reason why people from different religious backgrounds, or none, can’t participate fully in our democracy”.

Indeed — unlike in the North until recently — there is no such reason. Or is he perhaps trying to suggest the electorate won’t vote for non-Catholics?

I see no evidence of this, and I would be most interested to see if he can provide any to the contrary.

Are church and state not separate here? How many TDs voted against funding embryonic stem-cell research, etc., because they were Catholic?

And how many presented themselves for election exclusively as Catholic candidates?

A politician’s religion — if any — seems to have absolutely no impact on their actions in the Dáil, these days at any rate.

The only case of sectarianism in the South in recent times was that of some Catholic schoolchildren who were refused permission to travel on a particular schoolbus because they were not Protestant — as the Irish Examiner reported in August of last year.

I gather this situation was resolved and, anyway, such occurrences are extremely rare here — much ado about nothing really.

Nick Folley

36 Ardcarrig

Carrigaline

Co Cork