Parents are financially better off if they split up under the current UK tax system, according to a new report.

New research shows that 44 per cent of people claim to know someone who has been the victim of domestic abuse. The survey, carried out on behalf of Cosc, a Government organisation mandated to prevent domestic, sexual and domestic violence, also showed most people were unwilling to intervene in situations of abuse if they related to someone outside their family or circle of friends.

Aggressive atheists have used the terrorist outrages of September 11 as an excuse to attack all religions, according to the former head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, Lord Carey.

Children living with both biological parents or adoptive parents who attend religious services regularly are less likely to exhibit problems at school or at home, according to new research from the US.

The overwhelming majority of Irish people (92 per cent) believe that children have the right to be raised by a mother and father where possible, according to a new Red C poll commissioned by The Iona Institute.

Three international gay rights organisations are jointly urging the UN body that reviews implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) to incorporate the radical “Yogyakarta Principles” in its recommendations.

Ireland is the EU country with the highest birth rate, according to new figures from Eurostat, the EU's official statistics body.

A UK atheist group has launched an advertising campaign on public transport across Britain.

Five Roman Catholic adoption agencies have decided to go against Catholic teaching and change their policies to allow applications from homosexual couples, after the coming into force on January 1st of the UK Government's new Sexual Orientation Regulation (SOR).

The absence of fathers in the lives of children is set to cause “huge problems”, according to Brendan Dempsey, the southern regional president of the St Vincent de Paul Society (SVP).

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore has criticised attempts by the Government to ensure that the European Unions does not decide sensitive social issues.

In an interview with the Irish Times, he expressed the concern that the Government was trying to obtain legally binding guarantees from other EU member states on education and the family, in return for holding another referendum on Lisbon.

Mr Gilmore also said he was concerned that the guarantees sought by the Government might impact on same-sex civil union legislation being proposed in Ireland.

Mr Gilmore said: "We have a Bill at the moment for legal rights for same-sex unions. It is the equivalent of same-sex marriage. Are they seeking some kind of arrangements that would restrict ? I don't know. I am speculating because they haven't told us what the education and family matters on which they are seeking guarantees amount to.”

Speaking after meeting with the leaders of other socialist parties in the EU, Mr Gilmore expressed surprise that Government negotiations on the holding of a second referendum included references to “legally binding issues on education and the family”.

He suggested that these issues had not featured during the first Lisbon referendum.

However, a number of figures, such as Senator Ronan Mullen, did express concern that the Charter of Fundamental Rights, contained in the Lisbon treaty, would give the ECJ too much power to rule on matters concerning family law and education.

And some months afterwards, the Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, cited a number of examples of how the EU was imposing a secular agenda throughout Europe. In particular, he cited the attempt by the European Commission to force Ireland to remove from its employment equality legislation an exemption for religious institutions, an exemption the Commission described as “too broad”. This was first highlighted by The Iona Institute at an education conference last April.

Similar issues were highlighted at a meeting organised by The Iona Institute in November that was addressed by David Fieldsend, a Christian lobbyist in Brussels.

Mr Gilmore suggested that the Government was “pursuing an agenda which is being driven by social conservatives”. He said that Labour saw the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights through the Lisbon treaty as something that was going to extend rights of the individual citizen in the EU, and give individual citizens access to the European Court of Justice”.

Regarding the Charter, Mr Gilmore said that if there was "an attempt to water it down, or pull back from it, or derogate from it, that is something that we are going to have considerable difficulty with," he said.

Mr Gilmore said that most of the guarantees - dealing with neutrality, taxation, abortion - sought by the Government were not problematic. However he raised his concerns about the guarantees sought by the Government regarding the family and education during a meeting with both Mr Cowen and Mr Martin.

However, neither was able to clarify what the proposed guarantee would mean. The Department of Foreign Affairs, when questioned by The Irish Times, would not specify the particular issues that could be affected.

In its report, the Oireachtas subcommittee on Europe acknowledged that some of the witnesses before it had expressed concerns "about the potential impact of EU law on Ireland's position on sensitive socio-ethical issues such as abortion and the place of the family in society.

"Some have argued that this signifies a 'creeping' by the EU into areas where it has no competence under the treaties. A concern was also expressed that the union does not fully take into account Europe's Christian heritage when developing legislation and policies.”

The number of divorces granted has risen by a third between 2000 and 2007 and by six per cent in 2007 compared with 2006, according to figures released by the Courts Service. The statistics, published in the latest issue of Family Law Matters and reported in The Irish Times showed that there were 3,684 divorces granted in 2007, compared with 3,467 in 2006.

Regular attendance at Mass and other religious services cuts the risk of death by nearly 20 per cent among women aged 50 to 79, according to new research from the US.

Pope Benedict's Christmas address to the Curia which dealt, among other things, with marriage and the differences between the sexes, has been badly misquoted in a series of media outlets which claim the Pope suggested that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

A ruling that a Christian registrar, Miss Lillian Ladele, had been discriminated against by her Council when she objected to registering same-sex civil partnerships has been quashed by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in the UK.

Recapitalising familes "is an investment which comes with a guaranteed return", according to the Primate of All-Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady. In his Christmas message, the Cardinal said that, in order for future prosperity to built on more solid foundations, family and community life needed to be rebuilt.

The UK Government has admitted that children brought up within a marriage setting are better off than children brought up in cohabiting or single parent families.

Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire has put a moratorium on new holiday displays, after an atheist sign placed next to a nativity scene sparked a controversy.

An unmarried sperm donor father in the UK whose son was taken away by his lesbian mother during family court proceedings has been permitted to ask publicly for his safe return after restrictions on identifying the parties was lifted.

More than a third of Britons continue to believe in the virgin birth, according to new poll commissioned by Theos, the public theology think tank.