Formalised Church-State Dialogue in Ireland: A Critique of Concept

Abstract

In February 2007, then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern established a provision for formalised dialogue between the political institutions of the state (chiefly the Department of an Taoiseach) and religious bodies. This provision for dialogue was consciously modelled on Article 17.3 of the Functioning of the Lisbon Treaty. It was couched in terms of mutual respect and a need for a mature acceptance and recognition of contemporary socio-cultural pluralism. This official discourse reflected the ideals of deliberative democracy, the politics of recognition and identity, and the predominant norm of consensus-building. A conventional critique of the dialogue provision through the prism of deliberative democratic theory is presented, and the Irish instance is subsequently utilised as a point of departure for a reflective examination of the normative ideal. We argue that ideals of deliberation do not readily overcome embedded realities of power asymmetries and structural domination. As a result, public policy initiatives that seek to address the demands of various social movements for greater equality remain vulnerable to the interests and preferences of those religious bodies opposed to such reform. While recent revelations concerning the Catholic Church’s historical role within Ireland have gone some way to highlighting the need for a recalibration of the state’s relationship with corporate religion, the new dialogue provision entrenches a neo-corporate-style of interest representation. While this dialogue initiative has an expanded number of interlocutors, it is still substantially closed in practice to wider interested and affected parties. The deliberative modality is absent, replaced instead – as in EU praxis – with generally bilateral modes of state-religious engagement that lacks real deliberation and transparency. The Irish example exemplifies significant challenges to the realisation of deliberative democracy beyond the experimental level.