Two Irish women have become one of the first same-sex couples in Ireland to be recognised as legal parents of their children, after a five year campaign.

CEO of ‘Equality for Children’, Ranae von Meding appeared on Wednesday in a Dublin court where her legal wife Audrey Rooney was recognised as a parent to their two daughters Ava (5) and Arya (2). One partner provided the egg while a male donor provided the sperm, and the other partner had the resulting embryo implanted in her womb for gestation.

The father’s name does not appear on the birth cert. Many donor-conceived people go looking for their biological parents in later life.

Oxford University has said it supports a right to freedom of expression and therefore has condemned pro-abortion militants who attacked a pro-life stall during freshers’ week when new students join the university.

The attack happened earlier in the month. Pro-life students were left ‘frightened’ and ‘intimidated’ after their stall was destroyed.

Militants tore down posters advertising the Oxford Students for Life society and binned pamphlets and booklets last week.

The President of the pro-life society, Anna Fleischer, said a young woman working on the stall was left feeling ‘scared, frightened and nervous,’ following the incident.

An Oxford University spokesman said: ‘The University supports the right of all our students and student groups to express views of all persuasions within the law.

‘We therefore condemn last week’s protest against the Oxford Students for Life stall at the Freshers’ Fair, which was an attempt to deny the right of expression to others.

‘We have a robust freedom of speech policy which states ‘Within the bounds set by law, all voices or views which any member of our community considers relevant should be given the chance of a hearing.’

A revised reopening plan has been unveiled by Ministers which will see all limits on numbers at religious services, weddings and funerals to be lifted, although the retention of some public health measures will continue until at least February 2022.

Religious ceremonies will now be allowed to proceed without any limits on capacity, but social distancing will still apply.

The Government had hoped to fully lift the vast majority of Covid-19 restrictions from October 22nd but the recent surge in cases has seen these plans amended. Instead, many restrictions will remain in place.

A Covid-19 vaccine certificate will still be required for indoor hospitality and events, while the use of face masks and social distancing will remain in place until 2022.

A call has been made for a referendum on information rights and privacy for children who have been separated from their parents and families.

TDs and senators on the Oireachtas Children’s Committee heard a call from the Adoption Loss/Natural Parents Network of Ireland for a referendum on the right to information being more important than privacy, for children who were separated through adoption, fostering or residential care settings.

The committee is currently undergoing pre-legislative scrutiny of the Birth Information and Tracing Bill, which would see a right to access birth certificates, birth and early life information for people who have questions in relation to their origins or identity, and also all people who were adopted or boarded out.

Legislation to provide access “without harassment” to hospitals providing abortions has been introduced by Sinn Féin Senator Paul Gavan as the Government confirmed it is also drafting a Bill.

No country in Europe has a national law banning the practice.

Mr Gavan told the Seanad, without evidence, that daily protests being held outside hospitals across the State are attempting to “intimidate and cause upset” to those seeking abortions.

“They are invading the privacy and bodily autonomy of women and pregnant people at a profoundly vulnerable and sensitive time. People should not have to access healthcare like this,” he said, adding that people had “fundamental rights to privacy and dignity, especially so when they are visiting a hospital”.

Protesters who demonstrate outside pregnancy or contraception services or who harass, intimidate or record women within the buffer zone would face fines of up to €3,000 or imprisonment for up to six months. Under the legislation it would also be illegal to seek to influence a person’s decision to access an abortion or hold signs within the exclusion zone.

When legislation was introduced to provide for abortion in the wake of the 2018 referendum on the Eighth Amendment, a separate Bill was promised to prevent anti-abortion groups from going within a certain distance of hospitals.

Opposition TDs and campaigners are calling on Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly to outlaw pro-life adverts outside GP practices and hospitals as part of abortion-exclusion zones legislation.

It comes as The Life Institute and The Iona Institute launched a billboard campaign in Dublin, Cork, Galway and other parts of the country marking the “disturbing rise in the number of abortions”.

Social Democrat TD Holly Cairns said the current billboard campaign contains “misleading” information, but said that “there is nothing at the moment to stop groups putting these adverts up where they like”.

She accused pro-life campaigners of “targeting” hospitals and GP clinics where women go for treatment, calling it “a deliberate tactic”.

“We have seen it with those grotesque physical protests that happen outside hospitals and we have been waiting for legislation to create safe zones outside hospitals since 2018.”

“That safe zone legislation could also include billboards like this,” she said.

The government will only legislate for domestic surrogacy in the forthcoming assisted human reproduction bill and will not deal with international surrogacy until a later date, the Sunday Business Post has reported.

The new bill will create a regulatory framework around surrogacy and many aspects of assisted reproduction for the first time, however, provisions for international surrogacy services has now been delayed due to legal difficulties.

The Ministers for Justice, Health and Children, and the Attorney General have had meetings on the matter and drawn up an “options paper”, but they are struggling to overcome balancing the rights of children and of parents who avail of services in completely different jurisdictions.

There are also concerns about the potential for surrogates to be exploited in other countries.

Two out of three Irish voters are in favour of legalising assisted suicide for people with terminal illnesses, according to a new Behaviour & Attitudes poll for The Sunday Times.

Following the collapse of proposed legislation in the Dail earlier this year, seven out of ten people (71 per cent) said they would be opposed to the state prosecuting someone for helping a terminally ill person to end their life, while just 12 per cent said they would support a prosecution and the rest did not express an opinion.

Sixty-eight per cent of those interviewed said they would support legislation that would enable people with terminal illnesses to commit suicide in certain circumstances, to avoid pain or suffering, while one in five were opposed to this and the remaining 12 per cent had no opinion.

Support for assisted suicide was highest among those under the age of 35, with 79 per cent in favour. It was more than 20 percentage points lower among older voters, those aged 55 or over.

It was mentioned in a UCD study published earlier in the year that doctors were receiving training in how to perform D&E abortions but the admission that these abortions are actually being performed came this week in reply to a Parliamentary Question from Galway East TD Seán Canney.

Before the 2018 abortion referendum, senior politicians promised voters that D&E abortions would never happen if the Eighth Amendment was repealed.

Included in this week’s confirmation from the HSE that D&E abortions are being carried out in Ireland was a reference to the fact that it’s the IOG who are overseeing the training of doctors in how to carry out these types of abortions.

A Catholic priest was prevented from giving Conservative MP Sir David Amess the last rites as he lay dying in his Essex constituency because police refused him entry to the crime scene.

Father Jeffrey Woolnough arrived at the police cordon stretching across tree-lined Eastwood Road North in Leigh-on-Sea, offering to administer the Last Rites to the devout Catholic, 69, on Friday afternoon after he was stabbed multiple times by a suspected terrorist.

But police officers said “that because it was a crime scene, and also the nature of the scene, it just wasn’t possible.”

He later clarified on social media that he respected the Police’s decision and he instead prayed a rosary for the dying man from outside the police cordon.