A referendum on the constitutional clause protecting mothers from being forced to work outside the home should be held next year, a new Oireachtas report has recommended. Marriage should also have its special constitutional protection removed.

It follows a recommendation of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality. The Assembly believes all families should be treated equally and sees no reason to give marriage special status despite evidence showing that children tend to fare best when raised by a married mother and father.

In its interim report, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality recommended that the Government proceed with “necessary preparatory work” and that a decision should be made on the wording for a referendum to be put to the public in 2023. It proposed a number of “appropriate wordings” that could be used.

Article 41.2 should be “deleted and replaced with language that is not gender specific” and which “obliges the State to take reasonable measures to support care within the home and wider community”, the assembly said.

People with Down’s syndrome and their families rallied outside the UK Court of Appeal on Wednesday in support of a case against the UK Government that the current law that allows abortion up to birth for Down’s syndrome and other disabilities, but not for healthy babies, is discriminatory.

Heidi Crowter, a 27-year-old woman from Coventry who has Down’s syndrome, together with Máire Lea-Wilson from Brentford, West London, whose three-year-old son Aidan has Down’s syndrome, are challenging the UK Government over a disability clause in the current abortion law.

Heidi addressed a large rally of supporters who had travelled from around the country and said:

“When I tell people about the court case they say that it’s not fair. I am hopeful that the judges will see that it is not fair.

If the law said that all girl babies could be aborted up to birth everyone would say that is discrimination. So why does the law say that it is ok to terminate disabled babies right up to birth?

In 2022 we live in a society where disabled people are valued equally after birth but not in the womb. I hope that the judges will agree with me that this law is discrimination and needs to be changed.”

Pope Francis said US President Joe Biden should discuss with his pastor the “incoherence” of being a practising Catholic but also a major supporter of liberal abortion laws.

During an interview with Univisión and Televisa broadcast this week, Pope Francis was asked about abortion, Biden’s position, and whether to admit Catholic politicians who promote legal abortion to Holy Communion.

The Holy Father affirmed the scientific evidence showing a foetus is a human life and then asked, “Is it just to eliminate a human life?”

As for the evaluating Biden’s position and what the Church might do in response, Pope Francis said:

“Let him [Biden] talk to his pastor about that incoherence”.

In the wake of the overturning of the Roe v Wade abortion regime, Biden supports federal legislation that would make abortion legal up to birth in all fifty states.

Abortion exclusion zones outside hospitals and GP clinics that offer abortion will be dealt with in legislation to be fast tracked through the Oireachtas later this year, according to the Irish Examiner.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has finalised the General Scheme of a Bill to introduce the so-called “safe access zones” that would prevent pro-life prayer vigils, offers of help, or visible protests in the vicinity of places that administer abortion.

A Government source is cited that party leaders were recently briefed on the measures and a memo was circulated to Cabinet ministers Monday evening detailing the General Scheme of Bill.

As part of the drafting of the Bill, senior counsel was brought in to review it from a constitutional and human rights perspective. The Office of the Attorney General was also consulted as was the Department of Justice.

Protesters will not be allowed to gather within 100 metres of specified healthcare facilities and the legislation will be fast-tracked through the Dáil and Seanad.

Changes have been made to the Government’s hate crime bill after complaints from campaigning groups that the first version would make it too hard to secure prosecutions. However, Justice Minister, Helen McEntee, says the legislation will contain “robust safeguards” for freedom of expression. In Britain, though, similar legislation has seen individuals investigated by police for alleged ‘transphobia’ and ‘Islamophobia’ and has been strongly criticised.

In a statement, the Department of Justice said the initial intention was to keep a relatively high threshold for conviction of a hate crime, given the serious repercussions for someone’s record.

The new law will legislate for ‘hate crimes’ by creating new, aggravated forms of certain existing criminal offences, where those offences are motivated by prejudice against a protected characteristic such as race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation, gender and disability.

It will also make it easier to prosecute people for ‘hate’ speech.

A new HSE-commissioned report for the three year review of the abortion law was selective and incomplete, according to the Pro Life Campaign.

The report criticises conscientious objection, the three-day waiting period and the provisions around ‘fatal foetal abnormalities’ which say that the baby should have an expected lift-span of only 28 days or less after birth in order to be aborted.

Spokesperson Eilís Mulroy said terms like ‘chilling effect’ are used in the abortion debate to press for wider access to abortion and to produce certain outcomes, “while developments that raise serious questions about the extreme and inhumane nature of Ireland’s new abortion law are deliberately brushed aside and ignored”.

She continued: “The truth is that Ireland now has one of the most extreme abortion laws anywhere in the world, permitting unrestricted abortion in the first 12 weeks and allowing gruesome late-term abortions in certain circumstances.

“The Pro Life Campaign and others repeatedly drew attention over the past year to the highly political and partisan way Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly was overseeing the three year review. It remains a scandal that he only met with ‘stakeholders’ who champion wider access to abortion and refused to meet with any representatives of the pro-life side when setting up the review”.

The Department of Health has confirmed that free contraception for those aged 17 -25 will be rolled out in August.

This is despite a 2019 Working Group on Access to Contraception, under the then Health Minister, Simon Harris, say the proposal would probably be a waste of public funds.

The scheme is part of the €31 million women’s health package included in the Irish government’s Budget 2022, unveiled last October.

The roll-out is currently restricted to women aged 17 – 25,  a group alleged to have the largest number of identified cost barriers to contraception.

Funding was secured by the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly, who received government approval to bring a Committee Stage amendment to provide for the program.

The Government has pledged hundreds of multidenominational primary schools by 2030 by renting and transferring the patronage of religious-run schools to other bodies and by building new schools.

Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy questioned if there would be any “clawback” for the State for these reconfigured schools given that religious-run schools are likely to have received extensive public investment over the years in the form of extensions or upkeep.

Hubert Loftus, assistant secretary at the Department of Education, said in reply that the “reconfiguration” approach will involve multidenominational patrons “becoming a tenant” in the religious patron’s school. He gave the example of a Catholic school changing its patronage to become an Educate Together or multidenominational community national school.

In such a case, he said, the Catholic patron would retain ownership and be paid rent which would be decided on a case-by-case basis given the level of State investment in the building. In the past, Mr Loftus said, similar rental arrangements had been in the order of 10 per cent of local market rents. The schools are almost always built on parish land and were frequently built at the expense of parishioners if they are old enough. Local Catholics often contribute to the upkeep of the schools as well.

An attempt to present a minority report was thwarted by an Oireachtas committee on international surrogacy.

Addressing Seanad Eireann last week, Independent Senator, Ronan Mullen, said: “My colleague, Senator Keoghan, who wanted to present a minority report but was not facilitated in doing so, points out that none of the potential witnesses who had valid dissenting views and questions about commercial surrogacy to put to the committee was allowed to participate. They were purposely and tactically excluded”.

He said the Joint Committee on International Surrogacy did not have a hearing of different sides of the issue.

“In fact, the only public thing we have seen from it so far was the disgraceful treatment of my colleague, Senator Keoghan, by fellow Senators and by Deputies. She was effectively bullied for having a different view and communicating it respectfully. That is a stain on our democracy. The Oireachtas must rise to the challenge we face in these times. We cannot be the place where dissenting voices get cancelled,” he said.

He amplified his criticism the following day: “There are people with major concerns about the human rights of children, mothers and women in the context of surrogacy. It must be possible to make trenchant interventions and state clearly what one believes to be wrong or harmful to society without being accused of being unchristian or being bullied or accused of being a bigot”.

The State approved 195 gender recognition certificates last year, the highest number in any year since the provision to change the legal designation of one’s gender was introduced in 2015. It is one of the most radical pieces of legislation of this kind in the world and allows for gender self-identification without the need for any changes being made to a person’s body or for any medical diagnosis.

No applications for a certificate were refused, while one certificate was issued to a person aged between 16 and 17 years old. The remainder were issued to people over 18.

There were slightly more people legally changing from female to male (105) than from male to female (90).

In Britain, proposals to allow pure self-identification without medical diagnosis were rejected in late 2020.

Since the Gender Recognition Act 2015, a person can apply to the Minister for Social Protection for a gender recognition certificate, which ensures that the person’s preferred gender is recognised by the State.

Any person over 18 can apply for a gender recognition certificate, though there are separate arrangements for children aged 16 and 17.

There has only been one certificate refused since the introduction of the Act, which was to an adult aged over 18 in 2017.