Churches should come out and support the Government’s referendum on children’s rights, the Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, has said. Speaking during the debate on the legislation to allow the referendum take place on November 10th, Mr Noonan said he would like “if the churches made a clear statement at an early date indicating that...
A Danish man who fathered 43 children at 14 different IVF clinics in ten different countries by donating sperm, passed on a genetic disorder known as NF1 to at least five babies born from IVF procedures, it has been revealed. The man was allowed to continue donating, despite national rules in Denmark restricting donors to...
The Pope has defended marriage at a meeting in Rome of Christian Democrat leaders which included Taoiseach Enda Kenny. Speaking at the weekend to a meeting of the Christian/Centrist Democrat international organization’s Executive Committee, Pope Benedict said that the commitment to protect all human life was “interwoven with respecting marriage as an indissoluble union between...
A legal academic has questioned whether the upcoming children’s rights amendment goes far enough in making it easier for the State to intervene in families. Writing in yesterday’s Irish Examiner, Dr Conor O’Mahony, a lecturer in Constitutional law in UCC, suggested that the retention of the phrase “in exceptional circumstances” in the amendment raised...
France’s new Socialist Government is set to remove the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from all official documents under its plans to legalise same-sex marriage. The draft law states that ‘marriage is a union of two people, of different or the same gender’. The new law will also swap all references to ‘mothers and fathers’ for...
Mums in the UK would like to stay at home and look after their children but financial pressures are forcing them back to work, according to a new study. According to research, 75 per cent of new mothers would remain at home if money was no object. Almost 60 per cent told the study they...
Living together is no longer simply a “trial run” for marriage, but it has replaced marriage for many couples, an academic study into the shape of family life in Britain has found. The finding comes after official figures showed that the proportion of cohabiting couples with children equalled that for married couples for the first...
The Christian owner of a bed and breakfast home in the UK is being sued by a same-sex couple after she refused to let them stay in a double room because of her religious views. Michael Black, 64, and partner John Morgan, 59, sought damages from Susanne Wilkinson after she declined to let them have...
Diversity in Irish education “is not about eliminating difference” Archbishop Diarmuid Martin (pictured) has said. Speaking on Wednesday at a Mass for the opening of the school year, Dr Martin said that religious education cannot “become simply a colourless presentation of the history or the sociology of religion”. He was responding to suggestions made last...
The number of people who have experienced marital breakdown has risen by nearly a quarter since the 2006 Census, according to figures published yesterday by the Central Statistics Office. The data, published in the CSO’s Households and Families document, showed that number of separated and divorced people increased by 22.3 per cent between 2006 and...
