The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has raised serious concerns about the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill saying the definition of harmful online content is “hazardously vague”.

“It empowers a State-appointed body, the media commission, to ultimately decide what can and cannot be said online by deciding what is and is not harmful; enables a Minister to expand the definition of harmful online content; decide what entities fall under the scope of ‘designated online service providers’; and regulates their compliance with binding codes created by the commission,” the civil liberties body says.

Elsewhere, the Bill says a broadcaster or a provider of an audiovisual on-demand media service, such as the RTÉ Player, will not broadcast anything that may “reasonably be regarded as causing harm or offence”.

They also raised concerns about another piece of legislation dealing with hate crimes and other forms of hate speech which is due to be published in coming weeks by the Department of Justice.

A prominent Irish theologian has warned that the legacy of Irish religious could be “betrayed” by the gifting of third-level Catholic institutions to the State.

The Vatican must investigate several deals made by the Church in Ireland to hand over Catholic colleges in recent years, Prof. Eamonn Conway told The Irish Catholic.

The founder and until recently Head of Theology and Religious Studies at Mary Immaculate College said there needs to be a “formal evaluation” of the deals by the relevant Vatican bodies, such as the Dicastery for Culture and Catholic Education.

Prof. Conway questioned what the Church has received in return for the gifts of the Catholic institutions “in terms of safeguarding resources for the Church’s mission in Ireland”.

“It is important that the sacrifice of previous generations of Catholics who proudly and generously founded and built up these colleges, and that of the many religious sisters and brothers who worked selflessly over the years to provide a free education, is neither forgotten nor betrayed,” Prof. Conway said.

The Pro Life Campaign has blasted a call to introduce prison time for people engaged in pro-life activity within a hundred metres of abortion-providing facilities. Very few countries have laws of this kind.

Spokesperson Eilís Mulroy was responding to a proposal by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission that legislation to enact so-called “safe access zones” should include criminal penalties, rather than merely civil remedies.

Ms Mulroy branded the proposal “an excessively authoritarian suggestion”.

She said it was “inherently discriminatory”, because “it singles out a particular ideological and moral worldview for punishment”.

She added legislation to combat ‘intimidation’ and ‘harassment’ was not required, as these were already offences under public order laws.

“Nonetheless, the excessive measures which would have the impact of banning the optional provision of pro-life literature and even quiet and reflective prayer are being railroaded through the Oireachtas,” she stated.

Ireland ranks last of 38 developed countries when it comes to public family policies and second last on parental leave, a new study indicates.

The research by price comparison website confused.com found the average parental leave package across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) states stands at 32.73 weeks for mothers and 4.73 for fathers.

However, Ireland was second from bottom with 7.6 weeks for mothers and just 0.5 weeks for fathers. Only the US, which has no paid parental leave, ranked lower. Romania came top for parental leave with 92.40 weeks for mothers and 4.70 for fathers.

The survey, which is based on figures from the OECD Family Database, also ranked Ireland worst of all OECD countries for “public family policies”, with the State scoring just 1.05 out of 10 when it came to spending on items such as family benefits and education.

Australian Rules coaches have been accused of pressuring a player to have his partner’s child aborted so he could concentrate on football.

The allegation was first reported by the Australian broadcaster ABC.

An independent review commissioned by the Hawthorn club of the period 2010 to 2016 recounts the story of one indigenous player whose partner became pregnant. When he told coaches the news, they allegedly ushered him into an office, urged him to have the pregnancy terminated, ‘get rid’ of his partner and move into the home of an assistant coach.

“It was so intimidating, confusing and upsetting,” the former player is quoted as saying. “Clarkson [one of the coaches] just leaned over me and demanded that I needed to get rid of my unborn child and my partner. I was then manipulated and convinced to remove my SIM card from my phone, so there was no further contact between my family and me. They told me I’d be living with one of the other coaches from that night onwards’.

The report states the player “felt he had no choice. ‘He told me to kill my unborn kid.’”

The continued incarceration of a secondary school teacher for contempt of court after a row over transgender policy in his school has been described as “heavy handed” by the leader of Fianna Fail in the Seanad.

Lisa Chambers (pictured) addressed the situation of Enoch Burke yesterday after Senator Ronan Mullen raised the possibility that he may remain imprisoned until Christmas.

Senator Chambers agreed with his concerns and expressed her surprise that Mr Burke ,“ended up in Mountjoy Prison, which is usually home to some more serious offenders”.

“I think the matter should be expedited. Having spoken to the governor of Mountjoy previously on a visit, he would be of the view that there are many people in that prison who should not be there and would be better served with other solutions, and I believe Enoch Burke is one of those people”.

She added, “The charge against him in terms of contempt of court was correct and he does need to come forward on that front, but I do take the Senator’s point that it seems a very heavy-handed outcome in terms of the actual offence”.

Meanwhile, Mr Burke himself returned to the High Court on Tuesday asking that an injunction against him be lifted. He did not appeal the Court’s orders committing him to prison for contempt, nor did he purge his contempt.

He has been behind bars at Mountjoy Prison since early September.

A Catholic mother who has been subjected to a targeted campaign of harassment for questioning transgenderism has blasted UK police after they forced their way into her home and arrested her over a series of ‘allegedly malicious’ posts on an internet chat board.

Caroline Farrow, a journalist and mother-of-five, shared a lengthy thread online detailing her experience with Surrey Police on Monday night.

The row stems from a series of anonymous posts shared on an internet forum in June – in which Mrs Farrow is accused of posting ‘malicious’ content and ‘harassing’ other users on the online platform.

Mrs Farrow has strenuously denied the accusations, explaining that she was playing the organ during Mass at a local church at the very time the posts were published.

Speaking to GB news Tuesday evening, Mrs Farrow said: ‘I have been arrested for what was a twitter spat about gender issues.’

Mrs Farrow was previously investigated by the same police force in 2019 over allegations she had used the wrong pronoun to describe a transgender woman.

She has complained of her life being ‘invaded and dominated by insane trans rights activists’, and has been publicly supported by Harry Potter author JK Rowling.

Denmark and Greenland have formally agreed to launch a two-year investigation into birth control practices carried out for many years by Danish doctors on Inuit Greenlanders without their consent or proper explanation. Scandinavian countries had decades-long eugenics policies that lasted until the 1970s.

Thousands of Inuit women and girls were fitted with an intrauterine device (IUD), commonly known as a coil, during the 1960s and 70s, to prevent pregnancy.

A recent podcast, Spiralkampagnen (“coil campaign”), found records indicating that up to 4,500 women and girls – roughly half of all fertile females – had an IUD implanted in Greenland between 1966 and 1970. But the procedures continued into the mid-1970s.

Of these, it is unclear how many cases lacked consent or proper explanation.

Among those affected were girls as young as 12, and several have stated publicly that they were not properly informed. Some women unable to have children suspect the coil is to blame.

People who have no medical need should be able to avail of surrogacy and donor-assisted IVF, according to a Fine Gael Senator.

Emer Higgins told the Tánaiste, Leo Varadkar, that draft legislation being prepared may be medically and scientifically out of date and could have unintended consequences as it “provides for treatment for those with a specific need”.

“Today, people without specific needs can and indeed do avail of fertility treatments. Who do I mean by that? I mean same-sex couples, who avail of surrogacy, and women, particularly single women, who choose to preserve their fertility by freezing their eggs. It is essential that all fertility treatments currently available remain legally permissible, and both publicly and privately accessible, once the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill becomes law”.

Addressing the €10 million allocated in the budget to provide IVF services, the Tánaiste said work is to be done “in establishing the criteria as to who qualifies, how many cycles, and so on”.

Regarding upcoming legislation, he said the it will have to be examined “to ensure we do not inadvertently cause something to be unlawful when it is not the intention that it would be made unlawful”.

A tribunal has begun into the case of a Christian doctor who was placed under disciplinary measures for offering to pray with his patients.

In 2019, the General Medical Council (GMC) launched an investigation against Dr Richard Scott after the National Secular Society (NSS) raised concerns about him.

It argued that a “highly vulnerable” anonymous patient felt “discomfort at the use of prayer” by Dr Scott during a consultation at Bethesda Medical Centre in Margate, Kent.

The GMC ruled that no guidelines were breached and that “discussion of faith in consultations is not prohibited”.

However, the NHS England sustained a separate inquiry and ordered Dr Scott to attend a £1800 “professional boundaries” course designed for medical professionals who face sexual allegations. He was asked to pay for it himself.

Dr Scott refused to undergo the three-day course arguing NHS bosses were trying to “humiliate” him.

Now, supported by the Christian Legal Centre, Dr Scott has started to make his case at a tribunal hearing in Kent.