Public servants will have to declare their membership of ''secretive religious organisations'' if a motion to be tabled in the Seanad is successful. Senator David Norris who is putting the motion, said civil servants should be forced to declare membership of organisations such as Opus Dei and the Knights of St Columbanus to the Standards in Public Office Commission.
''I'd like to make it clear people have every right to join these organisations but what alarmed me was reports on secret handshake deal in the 2002 negotiations. It was implied, some of the officials acting on behalf of the taxpayer concluded in the favour of the orders, in a way that was clearly disadvantageous to the Irish taxpayer.'' Mr Norris told The Irish Catholic.
The motion was prompted by a scathing attack made by Labour TD, Ruairí Quinn during a Dáil debate on the Ryan Report last week.
Speaking about the negotiations of the 2002 redress deal struck between department officials and religious congregations, Mr Quinn said: ''Either officials in the department are members of secret societies such as the Knights of St Columbanus and Opus Dei and have taken it upon themselves to protect the interests of these clerical orders at this point in time in this year of 2009 or, alternatively, the Minister is politically incompetent and incapable of managing the Department of Education and Science.''
Opus Dei refused to comment on the pending motion saying only ''it refers to secretive religious organisations, which we are not''.
Mr Norris said he is confident of winning support for his motion which has yet to be timetabled for discussion.
The motion is being seconded by Independent Senator Joe O' Toole.
Meanwhile, Senator David Norris has also written to the Dáil Committee on Procedure and Privileges to object to the practice of reciting a prayer before the beginning of each session.
Senator Norris, who is a practicing Protestant said he found himself ''increasingly offended'' by the recitation of a prayer before the sitting of each session in both houses of the Oireachtas.
''Prayers should be personal and heartfelt and they should be sincere, the recital of a rigmarole is demeaning to real belief,'' he told The Irish Catholic.
During a recent Dáil debate, he objected to the practice which he said ''demonstrates that there is no real separation of the Church and State''.
''It presupposes that all Irish citizens believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, which is not the case.''
He said a more general prayer or moment of reflection would be more appropriate.
He added that it was unlikely that the prayer would be removed from the order of business as politicians were afraid of supporting a move that would be percieved as a vote loser.
''People will object for the same reason members of both houses, on Ash Wednesday, come with an inordinately large amounts of ash on their foreheads, I'm against these shows.''
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