Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn (pictured) has again suggested that the amount of time spent on religious education is harming the teaching of maths and English. He also criticized the amount of time spent teaching Irish. Speaking to the Irish Times, he claimed in some schools 30 per cent of weekly teaching time is spent...
The Department of Education is refusing to meet a demand by parents for extra places in a Catholic school in the Co. Meath town of Ashbourne. Instead, it is insisting that the parents send their children to a new Educate Together school which does not teach denominational-specific education during school hours. The parents do not...
Children might be better off having three legal parents rather than just one or two, an academic has argued. In an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Daniela Cutas, of the University of Gothenberg suggested that “the necessity of the max-two parents framework” needed to be challenged. Cutas argued that while there may be...
There are 30,000 child protection cases every year and of these 1,500 involve children who are the victims of sexual, physical or emotional abuse, the Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald (pictured) has revealed. The minister was speaking at the Fine Gael ardfheis at the weekend. Her comments come after it emerged that a report into...
A Catholic nurse in the UK who was threatened with being fired because she refused to work on an abortion ward has won her case without having to go to court. The nurse, who does not wish to be named, managed to persuade her employers that her right to refuse to carry out, or assist...
A Christian doctor in the UK who was disciplined and eventually fired for emailing a prayer to colleagues in a bid to raise their spirits is suing the hospital that sacked him. Dr David Drew, 64, said that he was made to feel like a “religious maniac” after sending out a prayer by St Ignatius...
The head of the Catholic Schools Partnership has strongly denied RTE reports that the Catholic Church and the State had “behind the scenes” talks to organise religious education in new VEC-run multi-denominational primary schools in which children are taught religion in their separate faith groups. Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Drivetime yesterday, Fr Michael Drumm (pictured)...
Catholicism remains the overwhelming majority religion in Ireland, Census 2011 shows. The number of Catholics has risen by nearly 180,000 people since 2006, according to the figures. Overall, there are now 3,861,335 Catholics in Ireland, an increase of 179,889, or 4.9 per cent since the last Census in 2006. Among Irish nationals, Catholicism retains an...
The number of Irish people who have experienced divorce has increased 150 percent since 2002, according to Census 2011. Combining separation, divorce and remarriage following divorce, the overall number of Irish people who have experienced a broken marriage has jumped from 155,239 in 2002, to 247,000 last year, an increase of just under 60 percent...
Bad parenting and absent fathers were a key factor involved in the riots which swept London and the UK last year, according to people questioned from the areas affected by the riots. The report is entitled the Riots, Communities and Victims Panel report and highlights the absence of fathers from the lives of many of...
