There are more than 5,000 children in the care of the State. Official figures from 2007 list the reasons why they are in care. The majority are in care because of ‘family-centred problems’ rather than abuse or neglect indicating children can already be taken into care for a wide range of reasons without a change...
This blog by a PhD student contains a useful legal analysis of the demand that a conscience clause be included in the Civil Partnership Act. The author, Eoin Daly, appears to be unsympathetic to such a demand, but he nonetheless believes that it might have a strong constitutional basis and he cannot understand why this...
Here’s a blog on the US website First Things highlighting an increasing trend on US campuses whereby those who believe in traditional sexual morality are being subjected to intimidation and direct sanction, including dismissal. It instances the case of Ken Howell who was sacked from his university (he has been provisionally reinstated) for teaching Catholic...
Derek Scally has written a revealing article in today’s Irish Times about what he calls “a little-known detour in the 1968 student revolution”, a project to sexually “liberate” children. Incredibly, as late as 1980 the German Green Party debated a motion aiming to “liberalise sex between children and adults”. The project of the ‘68ers’ was...
Family diversity advocates insist that it really makes no difference to a child whether or not they are raised by their own biological parents so long as they are raised by at least one loving parent, whether that parent figure is biologically related to the child or not. Among other things this view ignores...
John Waters (pictured) has a provocative column on the proposed children’s rights referendum in today’s Irish Times. Among the useful points he raises is the fact that, while the State arrogates to itself the right to revise the proposed wording, in order to protect its right to make policy, it refuses to grant the right...
A new report on the death of a seven-year-old girl, Khyra Ishaq (pictured), due to months of abuse at the hands of her mother and her boyfriend Junaid suggests that social services in her home town of Birmingham could have prevented the tragedy. The report finds that her death could have been prevented, and occurred...
On Thursday, Norah Gibbons, Director of Advocacy for children’s group Barnardos described the HSE as not fit for the purpose of looking after children’s welfare. It is a depressing, if unsurprising analysis given what we now know about the fate of too many of the children in the care of the HSE. Furthemore, Ms Gibbons’...
At the McGill summer school this week, Justice Adrian Hardiman made a very interesting and telling comparison between certain legal practices in the old Soviet Union and the impatience of certain groups in Ireland with the Constitution. Some people, he suggested, looked fondly to the days when Soviet judges regarded their jobs as the application...
Here’s an article about two homosexual men who went through the process of finding an egg donor, written by one of the men involved. Despite the fact the author is clearly in favour of the practice, a number of disturbing details emerge. Probably the most shocking is this assertion by an anonymous member of staff...
