The Government in the UK have mounted a “state takeover” of relationship and sex education in schools that denies parents a choice, according to the organiser of a 106,000-strong petition calling for parents to have an automatic right to opt out of the lessons. Kate Godfrey-Faussett, a chartered psychologist, said the government was “increasingly taking over and encroaching into parenting.” She added: “We are talking about intimate relationships and personal education for which it is a fundamental right of parents to take responsibility.” In the Commons, a number of Tory backbenchers also challenged education secretary Damian Hinds on the opt out rights.

Seven-in-ten religiously unaffiliated adults, who do not follow any religion, nonetheless believe in a higher power of some kind, including 17% who say they believe in God as described in the Bible and 53% who believe in some other form of higher power or spiritual force in the universe. Only one-quarter of religious “nones” (27%) say they do not believe in a higher power of any kind.

That’s the result of a Pew Research Center survey of more than 4,700 U.S. adults.

The ‘religiously unaffiliated’ comprises those who describe themselves as ‘atheist, ‘agnostic’ or ‘nothing in particular’.

Even one-in-five of the self-described ‘atheists’, however, do believe in some other kind of higher power or spiritual force in the universe (18%).

A child who suffered injuries in the womb at 20 weeks gestation has been awarded damages for a personal injury claim arising from an accident in a Tesco store.

David K McGrath, lawyer for the now 4 year old child, told Judge Eoin Garavan in the Circuit Civil Court that his client was injured when her mother collided with her shopping trolley which stopped suddenly on a moving walkway. Mr McGrath said that when the child was born in May 2013 she was found to have been suffering with haemolytic disease of the newborn, a type of jaundice, and had to be treated in a special unit for just under a week.

He said a medical expert linked the child’s condition to the accident and that Tesco had offered Ms Stewart, of Claremont Road, Sandymount, a settlement of €45,000 in respect of what happened to the child. The judge approved the settlement.

The case comes only two weeks after a new abortion law in New York state made it impossible to prosecute someone for killing an unborn child in the course of an assault on its mother, even if the assailant deliberately targeted the womb of the mother. This was a result of entirely decriminalising abortion and moving it into the realm of public health care instead.

Thieves have vandalised the crypt of a Church of Ireland church in Dublin and taken the head of an 800 year old mummy known as ‘The Crusader’.

The crypt of St Michan’s Church on Church Street, Dublin 7, has been badly damaged and several of the mummies, including the 400 year old remains of a nun, have been desecrated in the incident. The Crusader’s body was turned over and his head has been removed.

The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Michael Jackson, has expressed sadness and outrage at the incident. “I am shocked that someone would target this ancient burial place and desecrate the remains of those lying within it,” he stated.

The Archdeacon of the group of parishes of which St Michan’s is part, David Pierpoint, described the actions of the vandals as “devastating and sacrilegious”.

Polyamorists in Ireland claim they are suffering from the lack of legal recognition of their relationships and the negative judgements of their lifestyle choices. ‘Polyamory’ involves three or more people in a sexual relationship.

In The Irish Times, Sile Walsh, who specialises in ‘integrative coaching psychology’ and has a special interest in polyamory is quoted as saying that cultural non-acceptance of polyamory is one of the major stresses on poly relationships: “In Ireland, many poly people keep their lifestyle private and out of the public eye, with private groups and meet-ups for those choosing a poly lifestyle. There are a number of cultural barriers to poly[amory], one being no legal position in law for poly marriage . . . Another being ideas about what successful relationships look like and obviously religious influences.”

Apart from giving legal recognition to polyamory, the article also speaks about the parallel task of normalising the practice: “The true signifier that something has been accepted into mainstream culture is indifference; the luxury of having no particular feelings indicates a phenomenon’s normality”.

Children’s experience of the legal system can be bleak and inhospitable, according to family law experts and those working with children at risk who spoke at the Oireachtas Justice Committee last week.

Chair of the Law Society’s Family and Child Law Committee Keith Walsh said there was agreement that the current family law system was broken and there was an urgent need for a specialist division to be established. Mr Walsh told members that no resources have been allocated to give effect to the voice of the child in recent legislation.”So we have a Rolls Royce piece of legislation with basically no resources attached to it,” he said.

Dr Conor O’Mahony, Senior Lecturer at the School of Law in UCC, said there was an “uneven and patchwork approach” as to whether children get to participate in family law proceedings. He said whether a child gets a chance to be heard depends on “what the case is about, where it is being heard, which judge is hearing it, and who is paying the costs”, adding that this was “a far cry from what the Constitution states should happen”.

The Government has approved plans for the building of 12 new primary schools around the country under the patronage of either non-denominational or multi-denominational bodies. The schools are to be located in the cities and commuter belts of Dublin and Cork.

For years pressure in those places has hit Catholic schools hard and they had to adopt a system of deciding who would be accepted into oversubscribed schools. Their method of granting priority to children of Catholic families has been unfairly dubbed a ‘baptism barrier’. Spokespersons for Catholic schools, however, claimed there was instead a ‘buildings barrier’ that needed to be overcome in the areas where population growth exceeded school places.

This latest announcement by the Department of Education should ease the acuteness of the problem, but it remains to be seen whether politicians will drop plans to curb the capacity of Catholic schools to give any priority to children of their own faith community.