Parents and teachers are objecting to proposals to divest one of eight Catholic schools in Malahide, Kinsealy and Portmarnock in north Dublin to another educational patron. David Quinn appeared on the Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk during the week to discuss the matter, as well as on RTE’s Drivetime. You can listen to items here...
Mind the Gap II finds that those in the most disadvantaged social class are three times as likely to have suffered a broken marriage as those in the highest. It is a companion paper to Mind the Gap I which found that the most disadvantaged are far less likely to marry in the first place...
Maria Steen was on Today with Sean O’Rourke last week to discuss the future of Catholic schools. also on the programme was Michael Kelly, Editor of The Irish Catholic. Maria spoke about growing pressures on the ethos of Catholic schools, and that the Church needs to greatly cut down on the number of schools it...
Is the average family more fairly taxed now than they were in 1974? Taxation and the Family: Restoring Balance and Fairness, the Iona Institute’s new paper, analyses tax bands, credits and benefit payments and shows definitively that the answer is no. You can read the paper here.
A few months ago, The Iona Institute submitted a document to the Oireachtas Committee on Health regarding the General Scheme of a Bill to regulate Artificial Human Reproduction (AHR). It is co-written by Dr Joanna Rose, who is herself donor-conceived. Two weeks ago, The Irish Times reported our submission. The report said our submission “claims”...
Maria Steen, of the Iona Institute, talked to Sarah McInerney on Newstalk Breakfast about Minister Bruton’s plans to forcibly amend the admissions policies of some faith-based schools, namely, removing the so-called ‘baptism barrier’ to Catholic Schools. The item can be found here.
By David Mullins The Oireachtas Committee of the Eighth Amendment has published its final Report. While its recommendation to advocate ‘Repeal Simpliciter,’ or the total abolition of the Eighth Amendment is deeply disturbing, it was well flagged. The same cannot be said for some of the other less ‘controversial’ recommendations that have slipped quietly below...
Iona Institute director, David Quinn, was on The Pat Kenny Show last week to discuss the proposal by Education Minister, Richard Bruton, to remove the right of Catholic schools to admit Catholic children first in the event of over-enrollment. This right is being removed only from Catholic schools. The right of minority faith schools and...
Neither the Church nor the State should determine what kinds of schools we have. This is up to parents. The State must support the wishes of parents, including the wishes of parents who want faith schools and those who don’t. Read more in our paper ‘The Liberal Case for Religious Schools’.
Regular international surveys of student performance have become a feature of the world of education in recent years. The two best-known such surveys are TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study – run by the IEA) and PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment – run by the OECD). The former measures the performance of...
