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...
A ‘Forum on the Role of Religion in Primary School Admissions’ was held in Croke Park on Monday. A notable feature was the strong presence of Church of Ireland representatives at the meeting, there to defend the rights of their community. The event was organised by Education Minister, Richard Bruton. It brought together parties that...
David Quinn appeared on Claire Byrne Live on RTE on March 13, 2017, to discuss Church/State separation. In this short clip he says that public funding of Church schools exists in countries where Church and State are separated.
Iona Institute Director, David Quinn, appeared on RTE’s Claire Byrne Live on Monday night. In this short clip, he points out that public funding of Church schools exists in countries where Church and State are firmly separated and should continue in Ireland also. He instances the examples of Australia and the Netherlands. The item can...
Maria Steen of The Iona Institute was on RTE’s Claire Byrne Live last night to debate whether or not denominational schools should be allowed to select pupils on the basis of the religion of the school when there are too many applications for the number of available places at the school. The debate can be...
On Tuesday, David Quinn appeared on three separate local radio stations defending the admissions policies of faith-based schools. This was in response to a speech given on Monday by the Minister for Education, Richard Bruton, who promised to change those school’s preference for children of their own community. His interview with Tommy Marren of Mid-West...
A new law has been passed in Ontario that strikes the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from the law and replaces them with the word ‘parent’. This places a lie right at the centre of the law because every child without fail has a mother and a father or could not exist. But this is what...
