Children whose parents divorce may be more susceptible to various health problems later in life, new research suggests. People whose parents split before they reached age 16 had significantly higher levels of C-reactive protein — a blood marker of inflammation that’s associated with greater risk of heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, researchers at...
The debate over the Government’s abortion legislation “has been dominated by sanitised half-truths and comforting fictions” Fianna Fáil Senator Jim Walsh has said. Writing in today’s Irish Times, Senator Walsh hit back at those who criticised his speech last week in which he described in graphic terms what happened during an abortion. A range of...
Children placed in the care of foster parents were left with them even after misconduct allegations against those parents were upheld, according to a report from the health watchdog. The report, produced by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) raises a series of concerns about foster-care services, which include a lack of urgency in...
President Michael Higgins is to convene a meeting of the Council of State to decide whether to refer the Government’s abortion Bill to the Supreme Court. The President has the power, under Article 26 of the Constitution, to refer contentious legislation to the Court to assess its constitutionality. The meeting is set to take place...
Pope Francis has hit out at plans to legalise drugs, and condemned drug traffickers as “dealers of death”. Speaking in Brazil at World Youth Day, the Pope was responding to proposals throughout Latin American to lift restrictions on drug use. Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil have all relaxed their policies on drug use. But Pope Francis...
Just 10 percent of all nine month old babies are looked after in day-care centres, according to new figures. Sixty percent are looked after by their parents while the rest are looked after by relatives, friends, nannies etc. The data comes from the latest report of the Growing Up in Ireland study, a massive longitudinal...
Police in Britain are investigating the circumstances of a case in which an Irish-based woman died in a taxi hours after an abortion in a Marie Stopes clinic in London last year. The Pro Life Campaign (PLC) have said that the case “raises major questions about the safety of abortion for women in addition to...
Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte has said he would be “quite happy” to examine proposals to introduce internet porn filters to protect children just days after he said that the issue was not a priority. Last week, Mr Rabbitte said he was not going to look into a scheme being pursued in the UK, where there...
Elizabeth Marquadt is the author of ‘Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce’. Elizabeth herself is a child of divorce and grew up shuttling back and forth between the two houses of her divorced parents. This is the experience of many children of divorce. Now a...
The legalisation of same-sex marriage removes children from the centre of marriage and “heralds a profound social change” the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have warned. In a statement, they said that the new law broke “the existing legal links between the institution of marriage and sexual complementarity”. The statement, signed by Archbishop Vincent...
