Stephen Donnelly has been accused of going on an “ill-informed” solo run, causing “untold” hurt to families with children born through international commercial surrogacy, a practice banned or not recognised by almost every European country.

The Health Minister had suggested that international surrogacy might not be included in a new Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) bill, and attempting to do so was delaying a long-awaited push to publicly fund IVF.

Speaking in the Seanad last week, Mr Donnelly said “We need to regulate this sector [AHR] domestically. It’s at committee, and it has been paused. I was asked to stop it for several months, I’ve stopped it for several months. But I’m very keen that we get going with the AHR bill quickly.”

TDs and senators sitting on a special committee on international surrogacy reacted with dismay.

Mary Seery Kearney, a Fine Gael senator who had her own daughter via surrogacy, said Mr Donnelly’s remarks “caused absolutely untold hurt and upset amongst families with children via surrogacy.”

Kathleen Funchion of Sinn Féin said she “literally couldn’t believe” Mr Donnelly’s remarks. She said she was “sick” of the committee being accused of delaying a bill, which has been in pre-legislative scrutiny for the last five years.

Jennifer Whitmore, the chair of the committee, said that she believed Mr Donnelly was “moving the goalposts” at a late stage.

The dead have been taken to the morgue while about 50 wounded people are still being treated in hospital following the attack at the St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo town in Ondo state, said Kadiri Olanrewaju, head of Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Services in Ondo.

The Ondo Police Command has not made any arrests yet nor have they confirmed the identities of the attackers. Islamist radicals have been attacking Christians in many parts of Nigeria.

“We can only confirm that explosives were used and we found three undetonated IEDs (improvised explosive devices) at the scene,” police spokeswoman Odunlami Funmilayo told the AP.

The attackers “sneaked into” the church premises, said the police. Some of them were “disguised as congregants while other armed men who had positioned themselves around the church premises from different directions, fired into the church,” the police added.

The attackers opened fire on the worshippers just as the Pentecost Mass was ending, survivors said.

“There was no warning, no threat, this place has been peaceful,” said Sunday Adewale, who works in the palace of the local chief. “They just looked for people’s soft spot when people are relaxed.”

Anonymous, unidentifiable sperm and eggs may no longer be used for creating embryos in the US state of Colorado.

Gov. Jared Polis last week signed a landmark bill to make the state the first in the nation to give donor-conceived individuals the right to learn their donor’s identity when they turn 18, and access that person’s medical history before that.

The “Donor-Conceived Persons and Families of Donor-Conceived Persons Protection Act,” which takes effect Jan. 1, 2025, also caps the number of families that can use a specific donor and will require sperm and gamete banks to permanently maintain a donor’s records and regularly update their medical history. The minimum age to donate will be raised to 21.

“This is groundbreaking,” said Jody Madeira, an Indiana University law professor and expert on fertility law. “We’re really not sure what these bills should look like ideally, but we have one now.”

An Irish nun working on the missions has criticised the “frightening” lack of attention paid to Nigeria by the global community.

Sr Kathleen McGarvey’s comments come as the European Parliament rejected a motion on Christian persecution, prompted by the murder of teenager Deborah Yabuku in the Sokoto, Nigeria.

Ms Yabuku was accused by classmates of blaspheming against Muhammad and was stoned to death.

Sr McGarvey tsaid that most Muslims do not approve of such actions, but expressed her disappointment that “some Muslim candidates were afraid to criticise the lynching for fear they’ll lose support in an upcoming election”.

She added that Nigeria is “in a very bad situation, it’s worse than ever”, saying that violence is on the rise throughout the West African country.

“There is banditry, kidnapping has become commonplace – it’s causing huge insecurity,” Sr McGarvey told The Irish Catholic. “It’s against Christians, against Muslims. Everyone there feels the insecurity.”

She added that it’s “frightening that it doesn’t get attention worldwide. It’s an awful lot to do with the fact… our attention is on conflicts of more economic interest”.

A Louth-based, pro-life pharmacist has been censured over comments she posted on Facebook about abortion.

Aileen D’Arcy, a hospital pharmacist, was criticised by the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland [PSI] after an inquiry by the regulatory body’s professional conduct committee.

D’Arcy had said that, if passed, the 2018 abortion referendum would mean that “people like me, a pharmacist, will be forced to be complicit in the taking of a child’s life in the womb”.

In her post D’Arcy also said: “People should take the bloody abortion pills themselves and if they kill themselves in the process, it is their own fault, nobody else”.

D’Arcy observed that many UK pharmacists could not practise because they would not supply abortion pills. She also claimed that taxpayers would have to pay “for reckless behaviour”, while responsibility and accountability seemed to be “out of the picture.”

The inquiry was told that D’Arcy accepted that she had made an intemperate comment and expressed regret over it, although she did not accept it constituted professional misconduct. Her counsel argued that all she was highlighting was how pharmacists with her views on abortion might be required to prescribe pills in contradiction of their beliefs.

Remy Farrell SC, counsel for the PSI, said that the PSI did not take issue with the substance of D’Arcy’s views as they were a legitimate political opinion but rather with the inflammatory and inappropriate nature of the language she had used.

Marches to raise awareness about “Ireland’s spiraling abortion rate” took place across the country, May 20-22.

The Marches for Life, organised by the Pro-Life Campaign, attracted hundreds of pro-lifers in Galway, Cork and Donegal.

Speakers at the events warned that pressures are being placed on doctors and nurses to assist in abortions, forcing them to act against their conscience and opposition to abortion.

They called on the Government to introduce proper resources to support and inform women about positive alternatives to abortion.

The speakers included TDs Michael Collins and Seán Canney, along with local Councillors, doctors and activists.

A claim by a Fine Gael TD that a pro-life protest outside a GP’s practice subjected patients to “obstruction and intimidation” appears to be without foundation as the gathering in question occurred on the day the practice was closed, according to Gript Media.

Speaking in the Dail, Neale Richmond said that “patients of the GP practice in my village of Stepaside became the latest to be subjected to an act of sheer obstruction and intimidation by so-called protesters, simply because that medical practice offers full maternal and reproductive care, as per the laws of this land.”

He claimed that the protest was held on Monday. However, Gript have confirmed that the protest he was referring to was actually held on Saturday, the 28th of May. Stepaside Medical does not open on weekends and there were, therefore, no patients attending the practice during the protest.

Richmond did not respond to questions asking if he, having been informed by Gript of his error, still stood over his description of the protest, and, if so, who exactly he believes the protesters had obstructed or intimidated.

A very high 41.5pc of births in the fourth quarter of 2021 were outside marriage, according the latest release from the CSO.

This figure is roughly the same as in the US and UK and marks a further decline in tandem with marriage and fertility rates.

The figures did show there were 16,250 births in quarter 4 2021, which was 2,666 births or 19.6% more than the same period in 2020 when Covid-19 arrived in Ireland.

Of those, 9,512 (58.5%) births registered as within marriage/civil partnership.

There were 6,738 births registered as outside marriage/civil partnership, accounting for 41.5% of all births in quarter 4 2021.

The average age of first time mothers was 31.8, up 0.4 years from that recorded for the same period in the previous year. The average age of all mothers at maternity for births registered in quarter 4 2021 was 33.4 years, which is up 0.1 years from that recorded in quarter 4 2020. The average age of first time mothers outside marriage/civil partnership was 30.2, while the average age of all mothers outside marriage/civil partnership was 31.3 years. In the same quarter in 2020, the average age of mothers having their first baby outside marriage/civil partnership was 29.4 years while it was 30.9 years for all mothers for births registered outside of marriage/civil partnership.

An international coalition of feminist groups opposed to surrogacy have written to the Oireachtas to lodge their objections to legally recognising the practice.

In a letter to the Joint Committee on International Surrogacy, the group noted the near unanimous views of the committee members in favour of surrogacy and that the one dissenting voice, Senator Sharon Keogan, was “silenced”.

The International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood said most European countries ban surrogacy for reasons of human dignity.

They add that, whether for commercial or so called “altruistic” motives, donor conceived and surrogate pregnancies are higher risk and much more dangerous than naturally conceived pregnancies and should be listed among acts of violence against women.

“Surrogacy causes violence in at least four thematic fields: medical, psychological, legal, economic, in which personal, situational and socio-cultural aspects are intertwined”.