Documents

The Cohabitation Difference

An 11 country international survey that includes Ireland finds that cohabiting parents are less likely to be confident about their relationships and less happy in their family life than married parents. This briefing note from The Iona Institute examines the results of the survey and highlights ‘The Cohabitation Difference’.

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Mind the Gap II: Marriage and Family by Socio-Economic Group

Mind the Gap II finds that those in the most disadvantaged social class are three times as likely to have suffered a broken marriage as those in the highest. It is a companion paper to Mind the Gap I which found that the most disadvantaged are far less likely to marry in the first place...

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Submission to the Central Statistics Office

The Central Statistics Office invited submissions on the content of the questionnaire for the 2021 census during a public consultation process. Prof. Stephen Bullivant, on behalf of the Iona Institute, made a submission on the question about religion. The document can be found here. Updates on the consultation process can be found here.

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Submission to Health Committee on Assisted Human Reproduction Bill

The Iona Institute made a submission to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health earlier this year concerning the General Scheme of the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill 2017. It can be found here.

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A Duty to Die? Assisted suicide in Belgium and the Netherlands

A Private Member’s Bill to permit assisted suicide under certain circumstances is soon to come before the Oireachtas. The experience of Belgium and the Netherlands shows how difficult it is to limit it once it is introduced. Rates have soared in both countries and the grounds have widened. Read more in our latest briefing note.

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How Britain’s abortion law operates

Our new briefing paper looks at the operation of Britain’s abortion law, including the prevalence and the grounds for abortion. Pro-choice groups in Ireland want us to adopt a UK-style abortion law at a minimum. In the UK, one in every five pregnancies ends in abortion. You can download the briefing note from here.

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How the tax system hugely discriminates against single-income couples

Under the Irish tax code, a married couple on one income can pay thousands more in tax each year compared with a  double-income married couple earning the same amount. For example, a single-income married couple on €65,600 per annum, will pay more than €12,000 in tax while a double-income married couple also earning €65,600 will...

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Child-care: what do the public really want?

A briefing note from The Iona Institute sets out what child-care choices the public really want to make. Only a small minority (17pc) want to place young children in day-care, 49pc want to mind their young children at home, while 27pc want another family member to look after their children during the working day. Yet,...

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Mind the Gap: how marriage and family differ by social class

‘Mind the Gap’, a new report from The Iona Institute, shows how a person’s chances of marrying are hugely affected by the social class they are born into. The report shows that upper professional workers are more than twice as likely as unskilled workers to be married. The huge discrepancy shows that there are formidable...

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Legal Opinion: The rights of a mother and father in light of the proposed referendum

If we pass the marriage referendum as the Government wants, it will have profound changes on how we view the family in our law. A major legal opinion commissioned by The Iona Institute examines this question. It shows that our ability to give preference to motherhood and fatherhood in Irish law will be severely and...

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