The Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan, has urged the Government to give its opinion on the recently published wording for a proposed children’s rights referendum as soon as possible. She said yesterday: “I feel there is real momentum behind amending the Constitution to strengthen children’s rights at present and it is incumbent on all those...
The Iona Institute has condemned the treatment of a Catholic doctor by the Fitness to Practice Committee of the Irish Medical Council. As reported in the current issue of The Irish Catholic, Dr Phil Boyle appeared before the Fitness to Practice Committee last week on a charge of ‘professional misconduct’. Dr Boyle runs a fertility...
The Conservatives have published their plans to cut taxes for married couples, which would amount to up to £150 a year, with the possibility that this could increase over the course of the lifetime of a possible Tory Government. The Conservatives say they will offer a partially transferable personal allowance to married couples and same-sex...
The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, Dr John Neill, has said the education system must continue to have a place for religion. In an address yesterday at Trinity College Dublin, he said that the human spirit was “impoverished if its spiritual and indeed religious dimension is ignored”. Referring to the history of Trinity College,...
Two of Britain’s most senior judges have accused social workers trying to take children away from their mothers too quickly of working as if they were in “Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China”. Lord Justice Wall – who today becomes the new President of the Family Division – said a mother fighting for her two children...
Tory leader David Cameron has pledged to give faith schools the freedom to teach sex education “in a way that’s consistent with their beliefs. In an interview with the Catholic Herald, he added that parents should be free to decide whether their children attended such classes. Responding to a question about Labour’s Childrens, Schools and...
An ‘elder statesman’ of the British Labour party, Lord Donoghue, who served under Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Tony Blair, predicted that Roman Catholics in particular would turn their backs on the “politically correct zealots” in the party at the general election. He reserved particular venom for Labour’s “disgraceful” policy which obliges religious adoption agencies...
The Government has bowed to pressure and withdrawn its highly controversial home education and sex education plans for England. It is believed the Conservative Party blocked the sex education plans. Both the Tories and the Lib Dems were opposed to the proposal to restrict home education. Under the proposals, sex education was to become a...
Department of Finance officials are currently looking at the Civil Partnership Bill to ensure that homosexual couples who register as civil partners obtain the same tax benefits as married couples. Most of the changes will be related to income tax, although the disposition of assets as between civil partners may be affect, according to officials....
The Deputy Secretary General of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) has attacked the Iona Institute for defending the right of religious schools not to employ individuals they believe will undermine their ethos. In a speech yesterday at INTO annual congress, Mr Noel Ward quoted an article by a representative of the Institute which said...
