Last week Charlie McConalogue of Fianna Fail tabled a Private Member’s Bill to allow the adoption of the children of married couples. He was supported in this by party colleague, John Browne. Browne said it a good thing overall that so few Irish children are available for adoption. To put it mildly, this is arguable....
Dr Tom Hickey has kicked off a lively and useful debate about our schooling system and the meaning of republicanism. In a blog last week, I took issue (among other things) with the phrase ‘child-citizen’ which Dr Hickey continually used in his article. In any event, Dr Hickey has responded in a blog of his...
One of the most difficult issues that has arisen in the context of the debate over the transfer of denominational primary schools to other patrons is whether the present owner and patrons of such schools should be financially compensated. The Church of Ireland has offered an imaginative solution to this problem. There is a school...
Our recent conference on women, home and work is still causing a reaction. One of our speakers, Jonas Himmelstrand, had an article in The Irish Times on Friday responding to Ursula Kilkelly and Dympna Devine who insisted that the ‘Nordic’ daycare model (meaning in practice the Swedish one) is what we need to copy here...
Tom Hickey, a PhD student from NUI Galway, has written the most extraordinary article on school patronage for The Irish Times today in which he repeatedly refers not to children, but to ‘child citizens’. The article bristles with hostility towards denominational schools, religion, and is even suspicious of the influence parents have over their children....
A new poll from the prestigious Pew Research Centre issued to coincide with Father’s Day, shows that 70 percent of Americans believe women having children without a dad to help raise them is bad for society. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron would agree. To coincide with Father’s Day both men wrote articles...
Writing in The Irish Times yesterday, law lecturer Ronan McCrea argued that immigrant laws must give preference to people who are committed to ‘tolerance’. Depending on what he means, this could be deeply problematic, or not. If he has in mind immigrants who would impose Sharia law on their new societies given a chance, then...
Study after study has been produced showing the negative effects of divorce on children. But even when the children of divorce manage to keep up their school grades and so on, divorce can still affect them in ways that are not directly measurable. I came across a very relevant quote on this point the other...
At our conference on Women, Home and Work a fortnight ago, speaker Jonas Himmelstrand said the Swedish day-care model should not be followed by other countries because it is failing both children and parents in his country. An article in The Irish Times yesterday defended the ‘Nordic Model’ without really addressing the arguments against it....
As mentioned in my previous blog on the topic, at the recent Iona Institute conference, I was shocked by some of Jonas Himmelstrand’s descriptions of family policy in Sweden. As I understood, it aimed, among other things, to “liberate mothers from motherhood instincts,” so they could continue their careers. My own career would indeed be...
