A conference was held in Dublin last week called ‘Safe Ireland’. The intention was to draw attention to, and find ways of reducing, violence against women and children. One issue it appears not to have gone near is whether there is a link to family structure. That was a big oversight. Broadcaster Olivia O’Leary warned...
It seems family structure matters after all. An important new paper from the ESRI devotes a chapter to this question, and after controlling for factors like poverty, it nonetheless finds that being raised in a two parent household as distinct from a one parent household can confer certain advantages on children. The paper is called...
I had a very interesting debate about childcare on RTE’s Today with Sean O’Rourke yesterday. I was debating ex-Senator Jillian Van Turnhout, formerly of the Children’s Rights Alliance. I argued in favour of parental choice when it comes to child-minding. Jillian argued in favour of State-sponsored, State-funded, State-regulated ‘early education’. It was a clash of...
Here in Ireland, there is a strong campaign against faith schools. Their ethos is under attack for not being ‘inclusive’ enough, as is their admissions policy. Meanwhile, the British Government has just heaped praise on Catholic schools and said more are to be built in order to meet public demand. The contrast with the situation...
‘Mind the Gap’, a new report from The Iona Institute, shows how a person’s chances of marrying are hugely affected by the social class they are born into. The report shows that upper professional workers are more than twice as likely as unskilled workers to be married. The huge discrepancy shows that there are formidable...
‘Mind the Gap’, a new report from The Iona Institute, shows how a person’s chances of marrying are hugely affected by the social class they are born into. The report shows that upper professional workers are more than twice as likely as unskilled workers to be married. The huge discrepancy shows that there are formidable...
In January, the Iona Institute and the Irish Catholic newspaper held a conference called ‘Pope Francis and the Future of the Family’. It was a reflection on the two Synods on the Family that took place in Rome in 2014 and 2015 and which led to the Apostolic Exhortation, ‘Amoris Laetitia’ in April. The keynote...
Archbishop Eamon Martin has said Catholics should ask politicians about their policies towards the family, the right to life, schools and freedom of conscience in the coming election campaign. Speaking at a conference organised by the Iona Institute and The Irish Catholic newspaper, the Primate of All Ireland called on those who wish to be “advocates...
Archbishop Eamon Martin will be the keynote speaker at our next conference which is being jointed hosted with The Irish Catholic.
The number of children living in ‘traditional family’ settings in the United States has plummeted, new research has found. Defining the traditional family as one where “the children are under 18 years old, the mother stays at home while the father works and both parents are in their first marriage”, the Pew Research Centre studied...
