The Iona Blog

Of falsified birth certs, adopted children and egg and sperm donation

“GP ‘had scores of children illegally adopted’ was the banner front page headline on the Irish Mail on Sunday. The report details how a Monaghan GP was involved in illegal adoptions. The report slams the doctor, Dr Irene Creedon, for allowing couples to falsely register children as their own and not record on birth certs...

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David Quinn discusses the Iona Institute’s new pro-marriage video on Q102

The Iona Institute’s new video setting out the case for man/woman marriage now has 40,000 views. It was debated on Call Cooney on Q102 last week. David Quinn, director of The Iona Institute discussed the video after which callers gave their opinion. You can hear David’s interview on the show here. You can watch the...

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PM’s former-speechwriter wants to force churches to perform same-sex marriages

Last month, in the wake of UK government’s announcement that it was set to press ahead with same-sex marriage, it was reported that senior Church of England figures were deeply concerned that the legislation would ultimately force them to conduct same-sex marriages. A piece by Ian Birrell, a former speechwriter for Prime Minister David Cameron,...

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What research is Minister Fitzgerald’s rosy view of child-care based on?

Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald wants money diverted from Child Benefit into State-subsidised child care. She believes children will benefit, especially educationally, from this. However, research showing that children benefit from early child care is based mainly on children from  disadvantaged backgrounds and therefore she should be very slow to extrapolate from this to the general...

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Maria Steen discusses the Government decision to legislate for the X-case on CNN

Maria Steen of The Iona Institute debates the Government’s proposed abortion legislation with Choice Ireland’s Sinéad Ahern on CNN’s Connect the World with Becky Anderson. You can watch the debate here. (The debate proper starts at 3m 10sec in.)

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David Cameron sails into stormy waters over same-sex marriage

David Cameron’s (pictured) plan to introduce same-sex marriage may be still on track, but it has already brought deep fissures within his own party to the surface, and these divisions are only set to grow. He has been forced to grant his MPs a free vote, but that has not quelled the rebellion. Many Tory...

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John Waters on ‘Ireland and the Abolition of God’

  On Wednesday, columnist and author John Waters spoke to a packed meeting of the Iona Institute on the subject of ‘Ireland and the Abolition of God’. John said that Irish culture has created a situation in which it is impermissable to speak about God or transcendental truths in public.. He quoted Pope Benedict who...

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Minister Quinn could learn from the Catholic schools of Northern Ireland

Ruairi Quinn (pictured) will be noting again the amount of time spent teaching religion and Irish in our primary schools. The results of the latest international school literacy and numeracy tests conducted among 50 countries were released this week. Ireland is doing well, but perhaps not well enough. Ireland was very near the top in...

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Even in Sweden family breakdown hurts children

Divorce, cohabitation and births out of wedlock are all very high in Sweden.  How do Swedish children fare as a result? Not bad at all, reckons renowned economist, Paul Krugman, and he credits Sweden’s lavish welfare state with this. But he’s wrong, as this blog by sociologist Brad Wilcox shows. In fact, by the time...

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The Irish Human Rights Commission finds in favour of the ‘right’ to die

The Irish Human Right Commission has made a submission to the High Court in which it effectively calls for the legalisation of assisted suicide. They made the submission in a case involving a woman suffering from Multiple Sclerosis who is arguing that she has a human right to have someone assist her suicide. The IHRC’s...

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