THE National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) has recently published its draft programme for the Junior Certificate Social Personal and Health Education (SPHE) curriculum, which includes Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE). We have major concerns about what it proposes regarding pornography, consent and gender identity. Specifically, we ask if the programme means schools will...
WHAT will Catholic and other faith-based schools be allowed to teach in the future? This is the crucial question theologian and chairman of The Iona Institute, Dr John Murray, asks in our new paper, ‘Will Modern Ireland Tolerate Catholic Schools?’ As Ireland continues to change and becomes more multi-cultural, will the pressure increase on faith-based schools...
Moves are being made to legitimise overseas commercial surrogacy in Ireland. But as this briefing note points out, the practice exploits low-income women and commodifies babies. To download the document, click here. (Originally posted on 18th February 2022)
In many ways, atheism is based on the big bluff that you can have your cake and eat it too. In the latest paper from The Iona Institute, Dr Gerard Casey, former head of the Department of Philosophy at UCD, calls this bluff. The bluff is that you can deny the existence of God, and...
Prof. Gerard Casey writes about the contradictions of atheism. If atheism is correct, then there is no free will or purpose or meaning or intention. Then the phenomenon of choice is an illusion, and if choice is an illusion, ethics can have no purchase. Why should morality of any kind, exercise any influence on us,...
The Oireachtas Committee on Justice has invited submissions on the “Dying with Dignity Bill 2020”, presented by Deputy Gino Kenny. The deadline was midday today. The Bill aims at allowing euthanasia and assisted suicide when a person has an illness from which they are ‘likely to die’. A majority of TDs have already voted to move...
How many Catholics were attending Mass before the pandemic began? How many have returned in the meantime? How many will come back when this is all over? These were some of the vital questions asked in a new Iona Institute poll conducted by Amarach Research. The results of the survey can be found here.
A poll commissioned by The Iona Institute, looks at how religious practice took place during the lockdown. It was carried out by Amarach Research in April when no-one could attend religious services. It found that 27pc of people had watched religious services, including Mass, online. The results of the survey can be found here.
The Department of Justice has invited submissions to a review of Ireland’s law against hate speech. It is considering changing the present law so as to make it easier to charge someone with ‘hate‘. The Iona Institute has made a submission of its own to the review and raises concerns that any change to the...
Our new paper is a critique of the liberal philosophy of sex education and how consent is treated as the only necessary condition a couple has to fulfil before having sex with each other. It is a response to the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment which is currently conducting a review of Relationships and...
