The Government’s lack of progress on developing a new covenant between Church and State that was proposed by the Taoiseach in his address to Pope Francis last August, has been raised by the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin.

In an address in Limerick yesterday, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said that last August Leo Varadkar “expressed the belief that ‘that the time has now come for us to build a new relationship between Church and State in Ireland – a new covenant for the 21st Century’”.

“He spoke about an Ireland ‘in which religion is no longer at the centre of our society, but in which it still has an important place’,” the Archbishop said.

However, he added that “so far no progress has been made by the Government” in developing the idea.

While Brexit was taking up a lot of politicians’ time, the Archbishop said “this does not mean that this dialogue is not important not just for the interests of churches and Government, but rather for the good of Irish society”.

Leading scientists have called for a global moratorium on the use of powerful DNA editing tools to make genetically modified children.

The appeal was made in the journal Nature by a group of 18 scientists from seven countries (Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the U.S.), including some leaders in the development of CRISPR technologies, the most precise tool available for modifying DNA. The signatories have called for a voluntary moratorium on all studies involving gene editing of human eggs, sperm or embryos — so-called germline cells. Scientists proposed a similar moratorium in 2015, but in this newer version, the scientists go further, asking not just individual researchers to agree to stop work on gene editing human germline cells, but calling on nations to create explicit laws or regulations to prevent such studies for now, and to develop a framework for allowing the studies when they deem they are safe and acceptable.

The call for a moratorium received strong backing from the US National Institute of Health. “We have to make the clearest possible statement that this is a path we are not ready to go down, not now, and potentially not ever,” the NIH director, Francis Collins, told the Guardian.

The call comes four months after a team of scientists in China used CRISPR to modify the DNA of healthy twin human embryos in a bid to genetically “vaccinate” them against HIV infection.

The Catholic Bishops have appointed Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin to be the first chairman of their recently established www.councilforlife.ie.

The Council had been announced at the Summer 2018 meeting of the Bishops and was tasked with advising and advocating for the Church on a consistent ethic of life and care for those most at risk in the post-repeal political landscape.

Concerning the objective of the Council for Life, Bishop Doran said “The council will give priority to exploring how best, in the current socio-cultural context, the Catholic community can offer practical support to women in crisis pregnancy, giving their unborn babies the best chance at life.  It will also give priority to promoting an understanding of life questions among young people and to engaging them in the challenge of defending life.”

A motion to create exclusion zones outside clinics and hospitals facilitating abortions in Cork has been rejected.

Social Democrats Councillor June Murphy proposed bye-laws that would have banned, among other things, the distribution of materials such as leaflets from “unregulated” organisations. Cllr. Murphy argued that the Council needed to take action in the absence of national legislation on exclusion zones. However, Chief Executive Tim Lucey Lucey said that such a decision was beyond the scope of a local council and should be left to the Oireachtas to make, dismissing any further discussion on the matter.

A similar motion was ruled out of order in Dublin two weeks ago as, according to a Council spokesperson, it was found to be ‘not an operational matter for Dublin City Council.’  This meant it was not the kind of work the Council engages in – such as housing, planning, litter, or rubbish collections.

Another such motion was passed by Louth County Council in February but was quickly put on the back burner by the Chief Executive Joan Martin. She said she would seek a legal opinion on the motion before proceeding any further with it, saying, ‘I don’t want to have useless by-laws that we can’t enforce.’

European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, took time out of grappling with the Brexit crisis yesterday to praise the social teaching of the Catholic Church.

In a meeting with Bishops of various EU countries, President Juncker stated: “I am a fervent advocate of the social doctrine of the Church. It is one of the most noble teachings of our Church. All of this is part of a doctrine that Europe does not apply often enough. I would like us to rediscover the values and guiding principles of the social teaching of the Church”.

The meeting between the EU Bishops and President Juncker is part of the institutional dialogue between the EU and churches, religious and non-confessional bodies mandated by Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU).

At least 85 women from the Republic had abortions in UK clinics in January and February, compared to 157 for the same two months in 2018.

That’s according to figures from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the largest provider of abortions in the UK. The figures do not include the numbers of Irish women attending other UK abortion clinics.

Around one-third of the women were under nine weeks’ pregnant, which means they would have been eligible for an abortion drug through a GP’s certification, rather than a surgical abortion in a hospital. According to the Irish Independent, some women have said the steps that need to be taken in Ireland to secure a medical abortion—two visits to a GP spaced three days apart—are “too cumbersome” and they preferred the “easier option” of going to the UK.

The Government should establish family law courts to properly protect the best interests of children before instituting a more liberal divorce regime, according to Alan Shatter the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence.

Commenting on the proposed divorce referendum in a letter in the Irish Times yesterday, he said it was crucial that a specialist independent family court structure be first put in place. He said it was needed “to ensure the best interests of children and the welfare of dependent spouses are properly protected”.

He was responding to a report that childcare cases are being heard in overcrowded courts alongside criminal cases, in sometimes dilapidated courthouses, without basic facilities or privacy for families.