We’re all familiar with the fact that people are waiting longer and longer to get married, and that cohabitation is more and more common among young people. However, this doesn’t mean most young people no longer want to get married, even though a growing number don’t. According to a new paper by the Institute of...
On Tuesday, RTE aired a documentary in which a gay man examined his options as to how to become a father. The programme, Gay Daddy, followed TV presenter Darren Kennedy as he examined the possible routes by which he could become a father. But it is fair to say that it did not really examine...
On Sunday, David Quinn and Fergus Finlay of children’s charity Barnardos debated the Government’s proposed children’s rights referendum on RTE Radio’s This Week programme. You can listen to the debate here.
It’s a rare thing, these days for a West European politician to “do God”. It’s rarer still when the politician in question does so in a thoughtful, considered way. That’s what makes Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles’ (pictured) article in the Daily Telegraph the other day so interesting. Mr Pickles...
This week the OECD produced figures showing Ireland devotes less time on average to teaching science and maths than other countries, and more time teaching RE. We’re rightly worried about falling literacy and numeracy skills here and some people have concluded that the answer is to spend less time teaching RE. But as David Quinn...
This week the OECD produced figures showing Ireland devotes less time on average to teaching science and maths than other countries, and more time teaching RE. We’re rightly worried about falling literacy and numeracy skills here and some people have concluded that the answer is to spend less time teaching RE. But as David Quinn...
An article called ‘Why you’re not married’ has gone viral on the internet. It’s written by a TV scriptwriter named Tracy McMillan, who has been married three times herself. It is aimed at women who want to be married but aren’t married and wonder why. Pulling absolutely no punches, she tells them. She gives six...
Yesterday, writing in the Irish Independent, former Supreme Court judge Hugh O’Flaherty said that he didn’t think that the Government’s proposed referendum on children’s rights was necessary. He said that the aims of the wording, such as making the welfare of children a paramount consideration, extending the right to adoption where child’s welfare requires, providing...
Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald was on Today with Pat Kenny this morning (Monday) talking about the forthcoming children right’s referendum. She said that one reason we need the referendum is because it is so hard to adopt the children of married parents who therefore languish in the legal limbo of the foster care system...
Some months ago, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie vetoed a bill which would have allowed virtually unlimited surrogacy in his state. Surrogacy is banned in one European country after another. Here, Justice Minister Alan Shatter appears to be contemplating one of the most liberal surrogacy regimes in the world. Surrogacy is, of course, a process...
