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.

An archbishop and religious sister from the Middle East issued a stark warning to UK Parliamentarians that Christians in the region are still suffering persecution because of their faith.

Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, Iraq, thanked charities for helping rebuild schools, saying that investment in education for Iraqi Christians has helped fight the genocide undertaken by Daesh (ISIS).

He said: “If our children lose their schools, that’s the genocide, wiping out the past, the present and the future. So we hold to the future. Thank you to ACN [Aid to the Church in Need] for being the voice for the persecuted Christians.”

Sister Annie Demerjian of Aleppo, Syria, who has ministered to suffering Christians since the start of the civil war in 2011, said that the faithful are now struggling even more now.

She said: “Now the situation is worse than during the time of war and as our nuncio Cardinal Zenari said, 90 percent of the population is under the poverty line.

“We are heading for a humanitarian disaster and yet the world is not listening and is not hearing. The media is not hearing about Syria, it is not interested anymore.”

The national birth rate rose last year for the first time in 12 years compared with the year before when Covid-19 broke out.

According to the National Women and Infants Health Programme (NWIHP) annual report, the national birth rate rose by 6.5 per cent in 2021, when compared to 2020, with 60,551 babies being born last year.

This is the first time the birth rate has increased since 2009, the report adds. It is 14,000 fewer births than in 2011.

The report also said that at the end of 2021, 10 Maternity Hospitals and 405 GP services were providing or administering abortions.

Citing the second annual report of the Department of Health on the provision on abortion, it said a total of 6,577 abortions were carried out under the country’s abortion legislation in 2020.

A new policy document launched by Sinn Féin outlined the party’s proposals to invest heavily in institutional childcare so as to ensure mothers’ participation in the workforce. This is despite polling showing only a minority of parents state day-care is the first choice for their children during the working day.

It is estimated that parents are currently spending approximately €400 million annually on childcare fees across the State. The childcare package proposed by Sinn Féin would provide two-thirds of this cost (€270 million) in additional public investment on the condition that providers reduce fees for parents.

The policy would offer childcare facilities the option of entering the scheme. Parents would still have to make a contribution but would pay two-thirds less on average than they currently pay under the proposals.

Speaking at the launch of the proposals on Thursday in Ringsend Irishtown Community Centre in Dublin, Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on children Kathleen Funchion said the high cost of childcare had resulted in women being “locked out of the workforce” in recent years.

There had been “lip service around encouraging women into various roles and posts” but “often the support is not there” due to the cost of childcare preventing women from being able to go to work and juggle careers, Ms Funchion said.

Twelve out of Ireland’s 13 Members of the European Parliament have voted in favour of a non-binding resolution that would enforce abortion across the EU by inserting a ‘right’ to abortion into the Charter of Fundamental Rights and remove the matter from voters and national parliaments.

The resolution was a direct response to the US Supreme Court’s decision in overturning the Roe v Wade case in the United States that enforced a liberal abortion law across all 50 states.

It also calls for full decriminalisation of abortion. It was passed by 371 votes to 161.

One human rights expert, Dr. Adina Portaru, of ADF International in Brussels, said the resolution is “fundamentally inaccurate and misleading“.

“There is no ‘right’ to abortion – on the contrary, Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union upholds the right to life for everyone”, she said.

The Pro-Life Campaign called the text “extreme in tone” and said if ever implemented, “it would strip away even the most basic protections for unborn children against abortion across the 27 EU member states”.

The Irish MEPs who voted in favour of the resolution were as follows: Clare Daly, Mick Wallace, Luke “Ming” Flanagan, Chris MacManus, Grace O’Sullivan, Ciarán Cuffe, Frances Fitzgerald, Seán Kelly, Maria Walsh, Colm Markey Billy Kelleher and Barry Andrews. Deirdre Cline was not present for the vote.

A teacher has brought a High Court challenge to a disciplinary process over social media posts expressing traditional views on social issues such as the importance of having a mother and father.

His posts expressed his personal views on the treatment of women under Islam, the need for a mother and father, the binary distinction of male and female, and transgender issues.

Between 2015 and 2016, he was subject to almost daily complaints to his then employer, Dublin ETB, even though he did not mention the college in his posts, or express his views in the classroom.

He said he was wrongly denounced in his former workplace as a ‘homophobe’ ‘racist’ and ‘Islamophobe’ and was subjected to false accusations.

He claims that in late 2017 he was the subject of bullying claims by the school which he denied and which he said were an attempt to punish him by those persons who had complained about his posts.

The ETB ruled against him on the bullying claims and lodged a further complaint against him to the Teaching Council based on his social media postings.

That complaint alleged that Mr Johnson did not appear to be committed to ‘equality’ and ‘inclusion’ or respect diversity arising from gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity and other grounds.

Justice Anthony Barr granted Mr Johnson leave to take his case which will now return to the High Court in October.