Commuter belt areas like Meath and Kildare, which have high numbers of married households with children, are being hit the hardest by rising unemployment.

New data suggests that there is increasing concern about the impact of working mothers on family life, according to a new survey by Cambridge University.

A ‘test tube baby’ in India may become the world's first surrogate orphan after the Japanese couple who were to adopt her split up.

For the first time ever more children are being born to Irish women in their late thirties than to women in their late twenties as mothers-to-be are leaving raising a family until later than ever.

"Lads’ mags" are encouraging young men to look at women as sex objects, and their publishers should be held to account for this, according to a leading Conservative politician.

RTÉ has settled its High Court action against the Broadcasting Complaints Commission over its decision upholding a complaint about the use of a graphic featuring a clerical collar, rosary beads and Bible in relation to a TV news item about the Ferns report into child sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

Turkey's Constitutional Court has cut in half the State funding for the ruling AK Party, but has stepped back from banning it. The party, which won a decisive victory at the polls last year, had been accused of undermining the country's very restrictive secular system.

RTÉ is to challenge a ruling by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC) over a successful complaint made by a viewer against the use by the station of a religious symbol in a report on the findings of the Ferns inquiry into clerical child abuse. The station has begun High Court proceedings against the BCC.

The Government is looking to institute policies which will “support the family”, according to the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Hanafin. In an interview with the Sunday Independent, Minister Hanafin said that the Government had “the responsibility of supporting family”.

Nearly all of the social problems facing Britain stem from a loss of religion, the Chief Rabbi told Anglican bishops last night.

Loss of religion led to social disintegration and people succumbed to depression, stress, eating disorders and alcohol and drug abuse, Sir Jonathan Sacks told 650 bishops and their spouses in Canterbury.

Sir Jonathan, the first Chief Rabbi to address the Lambeth Conference, said that a society that lost its religion lost “graciousness”. “Relationships break down. Marriage grows weak. Families become fragile. Communities atrophy. And the result is that people feel vulnerable and alone.”

He continued: “That is where we are.” He said that mankind was “living through one of the most fateful ages of change since Homo sapiens first set foot on Earth”.

Globalisation and the new information technologies were fragmenting the world “into ever smaller sects of the like-minded”. At the same time, the fast flow of information was forcing people together as never before.

The conference is struggling to find a way to prevent the fragmentation of the worldwide Anglican Communion over such issues as biblical authority and the place of homosexuals in society.

One solution to be debated this week is the new Anglican “covenant”, a unity statement designed to bind provinces together in shared doctrine.

Sir Jonathan said that “covenants of faith are splitting apart”, and called on Christians to walk united with members of other religions in working to solve the world’s problems.

Too often, he said, religion showed a divided face to the world: “Conflict – between faiths, and sometimes within faiths.”

Sir Jonathan said that the “global covenant”created by globalisation was itself in danger. “The sanctity of human life is being desecrated by terror. The integrity of creation is threatened by environmental catastrophe. Respect for diversity is imperilled by what one writer has called the clash of civilisations,” he said.

Referring to the long history of Christian anti-semitism that underpinned centuries of persecution of the Jewish people, he said, “for a thousand years, between the First Crusade and the Holocaust, the word ‘Christian’ struck fear into Jewish hearts.”

While he admitted that the past could not be rewritten, it could be “redeemed”, he said. Today, more than 60 years after an Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, met a Chief Rabbi, J. H. Hertz, to found the Council of Christians and Jews, the two faith groups could meet as “beloved friends”. That friendship now had to be extended more widely, to Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Zoroastrians and Baha’is.

Sir Jonathan said: “Because though we do not share a faith, we surely share a fate. Religions should not fight each other but work together to face the challenges of poverty, hunger, disease and environmental disaster.”

A Sikh girl in the UK has won the right to wear a religious bangle at school after the High Court found in her favour in a landmark ruling which could impact on schools across the country.

Ireland's laws should no longer favour marriage over other family forms, but instead treat all “non-traditional forms of partnership” equally, according to the UN Human Rights Committee. The Committee spoke to various representatives of the Irish Government last about the State's human rights record.

Nearly 50 per cent of fertility experts believe that IVF treatment should not be offered to smokers or obese people, according to a new survey. The poll of international experts, most of whom work in the UK, found that only 29 per cent of such experts felt that IVF should be offered to all.

The Legal Aid Board (LAB) has predicted that growing unemployment could result in more couples seeking State assistance to separate and divorce.

Graham Cogman, a UK constable of 15 years standing, has taken a case against Norfolk Police on foot of claims he was victimised for refusing to wear a pink ribbon on his uniform to mark a "gay pride" event. Mr Cogman has also questioned the force's stance towards homosexuals.

The Crisis Pregnancy Agency (CPA) has told the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children that married couples “facing crisis pregnancy” should be allowed to place their child for adoption.

Educate Together, which provides non denominational primary school education, will step up its campaign to establish schools at second level, after a study which showed strong parental support for greater school choice.

The US state of California will get to vote in November on a state constitutional amendment aimed at banning same-sex marriage, the state Supreme Court decided last week. In a unanimous ruling, without comment, the court dismissed a lawsuit by gay-rights advocates seeking to remove an initiative sponsored by pro-marriage groups from the Nov. 4 ballot.

New figures announced this month have revealed that half the children of British-born mothers are being born outside marriage. The figures, published by the UK's Office for National Statistics also suggest that only a minority of children of long-standing British parents will grow up with a married mother and father.

Tory leader David Cameron has echoed the sentiments of US Democratic Presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama in calling for black fathers to get more involved with their children.