law came into force in 2010, Atheist Ireland published a list of 25 blasphemous quotes on its website to challenge it. The Justice Minister proposed that a referendum should be held to remove the offence of blasphemy from the Irish Constitution. Nugent told RTÉ that the Irish blasphemy law had caused Irish media to self-censor their output, saying that he had been told before several live interviews not to say anything blasphemous. When Irish police investigated comedian Stephen Fry for alleged blasphemy in 2017, Nugent welcomed the move because it highlighted a law that he said was "silly, silencing, and dangerous". When the police dropped the investigation because they could not find a large number of people who were outraged by Fry's comments, Nugent said that this created a dangerous incentive for people to demonstrate outrage when they see or hear something that they believe is blasphemous. In 2018 Nugent welcomed a new Government decision to hold a referendum to remove the offence of blasphemy from the constitution. He said that even in the absence of prosecutions the law was causing real damage to freedom of expression in Ireland, and to the country's reputation abroad. He said that it's never a good look when Pakistan, where people are killed for blasphemy, is speaking approvingly of your laws. Nugent told the Oireachtas health committee on abortion law to stop the unethical pattern of lawmaking by reacting to personal tragedies, and to base abortion law on human rights and compassion and not on religious doctrines. He supported a referendum in 2018 to remove the constitutional ban on abortion, saying it would enable pregnant women to make their own ethical decisions, based on their own conscience, but he added that he makes no claim that all atheists share this view. He asked the Standards in Public Office Commission to examine the funding of the Catholic bishops' referendum campaign in support of retaining the Amendment. He asked the Irish Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) Eamon Gilmore, who is agnostic, to refuse to swear the religious oath that he had to swear as a member of the Council of State, but Gilmore said that he had taken legal advice and that he had a constitutional obligation to swear the oath. Secular education Nugent campaigns for secular education in Ireland, including in an alliance between Atheist Ireland, the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community