During what debate there was about the Government’s Children and Family Relationships Act, which allowed for egg and sperm donation to anyone and everyone (donor-assisted human reproduction or DAHR), those who supported the bill had a sort of mantra that could have been taken from the Beatles. When it comes to raising children, “love is...

A poll conducted by website MummyPages.ie and RecruitIreland.com looks at the attitude of mothers towards childcare. Media coverage of the poll focused on the finding that 45 percent of mothers said the cost of childcare prevented them returning to work. This would indicate a clamour for State-subsidised childcare. In fact, the findings of the poll...

Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland has outlined his wishes for Irish schools in The Irish Times. If implemented they would result in the effective elimination of every denominational school in the country, bar a few privately-funded ones. The details of his proposals you can read in his article. However, if you strip down his vision...

Here is some things that have happened in the very civilised continent of Europe: Between October 2007 and December 2011, 100 people went to a clinic in Belgium’s Dutch-speaking region with depression, or schizophrenia, or, in several cases, Asperger’s syndrome, seeking euthanasia. The doctors, satisfied that 48 of the patients were in earnest, and that...

The other day sociologist Tony Fahey was interviewed on Today with Sean O’Rourke (Keelin Shanley standing in) about marriage in Ireland twenty years after the divorce referendum. During that referendum there were the usual accusations and counter-accusations but in some respects both sides were wrong about what would happen. The anti-divorce side warned that allowing...

It gives me no pleasure to note that the discussion around same-sex marriage is continuing to obey what writer and blogger Rod Dreher christened the “Law of Merited Impossibility”, which goes something like this: “legalising same-sex marriage will result in no negative consequences for religious liberty or freedom of conscience – and those bigots will...

Church-run schools, and more specifically Catholic-run schools, are under the spotlight again as a new school year approaches. There is criticism of the slowness of the bishops in handing over a set number of schools to other patron bodies such as Educate Together. However, as Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has pointed out, when a particular school...

The Department of Children has just released a report, Future Investment in Childcare in Ireland, suggesting different ways in day-care becomes more affordable for working parents. Some of the proposals, such as those to extend paid parental leave from six months after the birth of a child to a full year, are very welcome. But...

The question of the place of religion in European public life is a critical one – and a four-year research project into faith and secularisation in Europe finds underlying links between a variety of of different kinds of church-and-state issues. At first glance, Irish Catholics voting for same-sex marriage, British Muslims living according to sharia...

After the US Supreme Court legalised and constitutionalised same-sex marriage in all 50 states last week, there’s been a lot of talk about questions of religious freedom and freedom of conscience. How will dissenters from the new view of marriage fare in the new dispensation? Two pieces of writing, from UK Barrister Neil Addison and...