Writing in The Irish Independent tonight, James Downey, who is one of Ireland's most senior and respected columnists, suggests that aggressive secularism is a figment of Bertie Ahern's imagination. But that it were so.

Aggressive secularism is to be distinguished from secularism per se by the extent of its hostility to religion. For example, Dr Eric Kaufmann, author of 'Will the religious inherit the Earth?', is a secularist but he is not hostile towards religion.

Professor Richard Dawkins on the other hand is the Alpha Male of aggressive secularism and Dawkins has many admirers in Ireland all of whom would also be aggressive secularists by the mere fact of being fans of Dawkins.

Aggressive secularists are those who want to drive religion out of public life, who want to eliminate faith-based schools, who regard religion as irrational and bigoted, who want to impose politically correct morality (equality absolutism) upon religious organisations and religious believers without regard to their beliefs.

Many of our commentators and not a few of our politicians subscribe to most or all of this agenda.