In its latest newsletter, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, and its director, Mark Kelly, take The Iona Institute to task over its position on the Civil Partnership Act. In the course of his attack on us, Kelly sets up a whole series of straw-men which he naturally has no difficulty in toppling over. For...
Breda O’Brien’s (pictured) Irish Times column on Saturday contained a useful analysis on the current state of the debate about school patronage. Among other things, it helps to clarify a number of misconceptions that have not helped the discussion to date. For example, she points out that there “has been a simplistic analysis of secular...
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’...
