Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is not willing to host secular funeral ceremonies as they are not invitation-only events and numbers generally cannot be restricted.

The council also said carrying a casket up the stairs to the assembly rooms – which are located on the first floor amid ornate wood panelling and vaulted ceilings – could be a health-and-safety issue.

In a post on X, she said the latest census shows that fourteen per cent of Irish people have no religion, with Dun Laoghaire having the highest proportion of all with 24 per cent.

“As one of those atheists, I personally found when organising my own secular wedding, that I faced some additional hurdles compared with those getting married in one faith or with the humanist society”, she wrote.

She believes the difficulties cited could be overcome, by, for instance, an invite-only format.

Deputy Ward agreed saying a solution would be “to facilitate memorial services now, even if by invitation only (or services where there isn’t a body, for whatever reason)”, adding, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”.

A “disturbing” rise in sexual assaults of teenage girls by boys of similar age, with attacks becoming increasingly violent, has been reported by a Dublin service for victims of child abuse.

Referrals for peer-to-peer sexual abuse have increased by almost a third in four years at the Alders Unit in Dublin.

Most referrals were of adolescent girls abused by boys of similar age who were known to them, with reported abuses ranging from inappropriate contact to rape.

Another worrying development flagged by the Alders Unit is a marked escalation in the violence used.

The cause of the increase in teenage sexual violence against young women has been linked to the proliferation of violent adult pornography online and on social media, both here and internationally.

People may soon be required to upload their passport details with a selfie to websites if they want to view pornography as part of efforts to help protect children from harmful content online.

The media regulator has said that part of the new Online Safety Code will be telling digital platforms that they must use an effective form of age verification.

Coimisiún na Meán executive chairperson Jeremy Godfrey told the Irish Examiner his office will not be “absolutely prescriptive” on how age verification should work, but a requirement for a person to show their passport and a selfie to verify identity would be the “gold standard”.

The Online Safety Code is out for public consultation until the end of this month. It outlines measures that video-sharing platforms will have to implement to keep users, especially children, safe from harmful content.

Under this code, Ireland’s Coimisiún na Meán will have responsibility for enforcing these measures on all video sharing platforms that have their European headquarters in Ireland.

A mother who gave birth to two babies from different mothers and then had to give them up has won a payout from the clinic in California that mixed up the embryos.

The Asian-American couple who were only ever identified by their initials have settled for an undisclosed sum with the Cha Fertility Clinic in Southern California, according to reports.

In 2018, the couple, identified as YZ and AP, from Flushing, New York, travelled to California and paid $100,000 for fertility treatment. It resulted in eight embryos and a pregnancy for AP, who was told she was having twin girls.

When she gave birth, she did so to two Caucasian boys rather than two girls with Asian features. Subsequent investigations revealed that in an “unimaginable mishap” the clinic had implanted two male embryos from two different families into AP, according to a lawsuit they filed.

A few weeks later, the couple were forced to give up the baby boys. Their lawsuit said they had suffered “permanent emotional injuries from which they will not recover”.

The Government is considering legislative changes to pressure religious bodies to contribute to a redress scheme for past residents of mother and baby homes, the Minister for Equality has said. Such a proposal could clash with religious freedom and property rights in the Constitution.

Roderic O’Gorman told the Irish Times that the Government will “consider its options” if religious congregations do not contribute adequately towards the costs in his opinion.

“We will have to look and see if we get meaningful offers of contributions. And if we don’t, we’ll have to consider what options are available,” he said. “I know in some countries legislative changes were introduced with a view to putting pressure on institutions. But I don’t want to prejudge the outcome of these negotiations.”

No examples were cited in the interview’s report.

The Minister said he expects applications from more than 30,000 people, including many now living overseas, adding that an international information campaign would begin once the scheme opens.

Mother and baby homes existed in many countries with only a small minority in the English-speaking world being run by Catholic organisations. None have reparation schemes specifically for mother and baby homes.

A priest in Nicaragua was arrested following Mass on New Year’s Eve.

At least 14 priests, two seminarians and a Bishop have been arrested in recent days in the country ruled by left-wing dictator Daniel Ortega.

Fr. Gustavo Sandino, the pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows, was arrested on 31 December following Sunday Mass in the Diocese of Jinotega, Nicaragua.

In Managua, Fr. Fernando Téllez Báez, pastor of Our Lady of the Americas, was taken in the early hours a day earlier, and Fr. Jader Hernández, pastor of the Mother of the Divine Shepherd, the evening of 30 December.

Earlier in the year, Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos of Matagalpa was sentenced to 26 years in prison without due process.

Representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said that Nicaragua is moving “increasingly” away from the rule of law and “fundamental freedoms” by persecuting “political and indigenous leaders, members of the Catholic Church, activists, and journalists” with “repeated cases of arbitrary detention.”

Data shows that Christian persecution is on the rise globally, but that repression remains largely overlooked in the news cycle, according to one religious freedom expert.

“It is important to … remember persecuted Christians in many countries around the world. Their suffering gets no coverage at all by major media,” said Joop Koopman, director of communications for Aid to the Church in Need in the United States.

More than 360 million of the world’s estimated 2.6 billion Christians — or one in seven Christians globally — currently experience “high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith,” according to Open Doors U.S., an advocacy group that provides Bibles and support to persecuted Christians in more than 70 countries.

One in five Christians in Africa and two in five in Asia experience persecution which notes that over the last three decades, the number of countries where Christians suffer high and extreme levels of persecution has almost doubled to 76.

Direct forms of persecution include attacks on life and property, assassinations, imprisonment, torture, restricted access to churches and Bibles, forced conversions, and violence against women, while indirect attacks take the form of educational and employment discrimination, legal restrictions and denial of rights, according to the nonprofit International Christian Concern.

The Government will carry out a financial assessment of church assets with a view to pressuring the religious orders in talks on reparations for former mother and baby home residents. Mother and baby homes existed in many countries with only a small minority in the English-speaking worth being run by Catholic organisations. None have reparation schemes specifically for mother and baby homes.

Last May, a special Government negotiator, Sheila Nunan, took control of the talks after Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman failed to reach a deal with eight Catholic congregations and the Church of Ireland. A Church of Ireland body ran Bethany home.

With talks at an impasse, Ms Nunan has told the congregations she will engage financial experts to examine their assets.

While the Department of Children had nothing to say about the mandate for the financial assessment, the Irish Times reports that the aim is to examine what payments individual orders could sustain in any deal.

While most church bodies had no comment on the talks, a figure linked to a congregation said the orders knew little about the looming financial assessments other than it exists.

The latest effort to advance talks with church bodies comes more than two years after drug company GlaxoSmithKline ruled out making reparation payments for clinical trials on mother and baby home children between 1934 and 1973.

The Nicaraguan police have arrested the bishop of Siuna, Isidoro del Carmen Mora Ortega, making him the second prelate arrested by the left-wing dictatorship headed by President Daniel Ortega.

Ortega has been in power since 2007 and has increasingly directed attacks against Catholic institutions and various members of the clergy.

The arrest of Bishop Mora, 63, came a day after the bishop celebrated a Mass in Matagalpa and asked people to pray for their bishop, Rolando Álvarez, who was placed under house arrest in August 2022 and unjustly sentenced to 26 years and four months in prison in February this year.

Currently Bishop Álvarez is imprisoned in the prison known as “La Modelo,” where political prisoners of the regime are commonly sent.

Almost three months after his arrest, a Catholic priest in northern India charged under the country’s controversial anti-conversion laws after a complaint from a member of a Hindu nationalist organization has been granted bail and is set for release.

Father Sebastian “Babu” Francis had been taken into police custody Oct. 2.

On Oct. 1, a local leader of the right-wing BJP party of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with a group of supporters, reportedly barged into a Pentecostal prayer service falsely accusing the pastor of religious conversion. When police arrived on the scene, they also detained the pastor’s brother, who is a Catholic.

Eventually four members of the family were arrested, and, when they phoned Fr Francis for help, the 56-year-old too was taken into custody.

Bishop Gerald Mathias of Lucknow told Crux the accusation of conversion is “baseless,” ascribing the arrest to the high-handedness of the police, “who are simply under control of the right-wing BJP party.”

“The fundamentalists are going around as vigilantes to prevent even prayer meetings and worship of the faithful,” Mathias said. “Police simply arrest Christians without verifying facts, with no evidence just because someone has complained.”