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Health Minister James Reilly should suspend public funding of Spunout.ie
Public funding for the website Spunout.ie should be suspended because of its radically pro-choice philosophy, its promotion of an extremely permissive approach to sexual behaviour among teenagers, and because of the way in which the role of parents in the lives of their teenage children is almost completely sidelined by the site.
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Press release by The Iona Institute Government must move to prohibit surrogacy in the interests of children
In light of today’s ruling by the High Court in the surrogacy case, the Government must now introduce legislation to prohibit the use of surrogates in order to bring our law into line with most other European countries and to protect the rights of children.
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Press release by The Iona Institute Convention should recommend amending not deleting women in the home provision
The Constitutional Convention meets this weekend to consider Article 41.2 of the Constitution which deals with women in the home. In its submission to the Convention, the Iona Institute says the provision should not be deleted but be made gender-neutral instead.
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No Catholic schools should be transferred without guarantees says leading educationalist
No Catholic primary schools should be handed over to new patron bodies without firm guarantees that the ethos of the remaining schools will be properly respected, one of the country’s leading Catholic educationalists has said.
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Press release from The Iona Institute: Permitting assisted suicide would send a terrible signal to vulnerable people
The High Court is currently hearing the case of Marie Fleming, a Multiple Sclerosis sufferer who is claiming the right to die by assisted suicide. The Iona Institute does not believe that the right to die can be regarded purely as a matter of personal autonomy. The wider societal implications of granting such a right cannot be ignored and must be the first consideration of the court.
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Press release from The Iona Institute Referendum will make very little difference to number of adoptions
The claim that the children’s rights referendum if passed “will allow the up to 2,000 children trapped in long term state care to be adopted and given a second chance at having a loving permanent family” is without foundation. The claim is made because the Constitution prevents married couples voluntarily placing their children for adoption.
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Press release from The Iona Institute: 277,000 may belong to ‘no religion’ but this doesn’t mean they’re purely secular
New Census figures show that the number of people living in Ireland who say they have ‘no religion’ (including self-identified atheists and agnostics) has increased fourfold since 1991 and stood at 277,237 as at last year. However, we have no real way of knowing exactly what people mean when they say they belong to “no religion” without further study.
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Minister Rabbitte’s comments on Church and State 'deeply undemocratic'
August 26, 2012 - Reacting to Cardinal Brady’s comment today that the Church might lobby politicians on the issue of abortion, Minister Pat Rabbitte said it would be a “retrograde” step if the Church started “dictating” to politicians again. However, Minister Rabbitte’s remark is really an attempt to rob the Church of the democratic right to lobby. Responding to the remarks, Dr John Murray of The Iona Institute said: “It is Minister Rabbitte’s comment that is actually retrograde. First of all, lobbying is not the same as dictating.
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Press release from The Iona Institute: Tanaiste’s speech an attack on religious freedom
In his speech at the Tom Johnson Summer School today Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore spoke at some length about religious freedom but the speech in fact amounted to an attack on religious freedom. It revealed that by Church/State separation Mr Gilmore means something closer to the privatisation of religion and by religious freedom he mostly means freedom from religion.
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Press release from The Iona Institute Stay-at-home mothers becoming an endangered species new Census data reveal
June 29, 2012 – NEW CENSUS data released yesterday show that the stay-at-home mother is becoming an endangered species.
Census 2011 reveals that the number of stay-at-home mothers is plummeting by almost 10,000 per annum and this rate of decline has been going on for over 20 years.
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Press Release from The Iona Institute Children’s rights referendum must not give the State excessive power of intervention
RESPONDING TO Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore’s announcement today that the referendum on children’s rights is to take place in the autumn, The Iona Institute said the proposed amendment “must not give the State excessive power of intervention”. Iona Institute director, David Quinn, said: “The Iona Institute has no objection to a children’s rights referendum as such. However, any amendment should not lower the threshold of intervention so much that the State is given too much power to intervene in family life. This is the case in countries such as Canada.”
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Press release from The Iona Institute Irish women have better quality of life than Irish men says new OECD report
The OECD’s latest ‘Better Life Index’ shows that Irish women have a better overall quality of life than men when a range of different factors is taken into account. Those factors include: life satisfaction; employment; health; education; social support; and work/life balance. The report shows that men are more likely than women to be in paid employment (64 percent vs 58 percent respectively).
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Forum recommendations would seriously undermine identity of denominational schools, says Iona Institute
April 10, 2012 – Some of the recommendations contained in the report of the Advisory Group to the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector released today “would seriously undermine the identity of denominational schools”, The Iona Institute has said.
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Press release from The Iona Institute: Increase in marital breakdown revealed by Census ‘worrying and must be addressed'
New Census data showing that the number of Irish people who have divorced is up 150 percent in the period 2002 to 2011 has been described as “worrying” by The Iona Institute today.
Combining separation, divorce and remarriage following divorce, the overall number of Irish people who have experienced a broken marriage has jumped from 155,239 in 2002, to 247,000 last year, an increase of just under 60 percent in that time period.
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Iona Institute welcomes European Court decision on gay adoption
March 16, 2012 – The Iona Institute welcomes yesterday’s decision by the European Court of Human Rights that French laws favouring opposite-sex couples in regard to both adoption and access to certain Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) techniques are not in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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