Britain’s Roman Catholic leaders have branded a proposed EU Equal Treatment Directive an “instrument of oppression”.

Only 11 per cent of children of primary school age are in child care, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said his country's ban on gay marriage would remain, despite moves within his Labor Party to have it overturned. Labor policy also opposes civil unions.

Religion is the most popular voluntary group activity, according to new figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Amnesty International Ireland head Colm O’Gorman has said opposition to same-sex marriage and adoption is "rooted in bigotry".

Choirs have been told they are no longer welcome to sing Christmas carols in areas of Parliament because it puts MPs off their lunch, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.

Divorce or the death of a spouse severely damages a man or woman's long-term health even if they remarry, according to a new study of over 8,000 people.

The head of the British Government's watchdog on IVF has said that the longstanding ban on selling sperm and eggs should be reconsidered to address a shortage of donors.

A Sunday school teacher has been told she can’t put up a poster at her local library to advertise a church children’s event because it ‘promotes religion’.

Fathers and mothers each play a valuable but different role in raising children, according to research published by New Scientist magazine.

Ireland now has a marital breakdown rate of 27.5 per cent, based on figures from the Courts Service Annual Report for 2008.

The new data shows that there were 6,222 separations and divorces in 2008, an increase of 15.6 per cent from 2001, when there were 5,380 separations and divorces.

Of these, 4,257 were divorces, with 1,965 separations making up the difference. This represents a 22 per cent increase in divorce since 2001, when there were 3,490 divorces.

Fifty-eight per cent of divorce proceedings are begun by women and 72 per cent of judicial separation figures are begun by women. This is in line with the international experience.

When compared to the 22,544 marriages which took place in 2007, the latest year for which such figures are available, the figures show a divorce rate of 18.8 per cent, with an overall marital breakdown rate of 27.5 per cent once separation figures are added in.

However, this is still likely to be an underestimate because many couples reach private separation agreements which are not recorded in the official figures.

The Court Report confirms a long term trend towards higher marital breakdown in Ireland. The 2006 Census showed that there had been a 500 per cent rise in marital breakdown since 1986 with over 200,000 people in Ireland now divorced or separated.

The 2006 figures showed that, calculated as a percentage of all the first marriages in the country, 13 per cent of people had experienced marital breakdown.

The 2008 figures also show that there were 857 custody and access orders made in the circuit Court in respect of judicial separations and divorces. In the District Court, there were 1,243 such orders made.

There were 164 barring orders granted in the Circuit Court, with 1,251 granted in the District Court. There were 2,955 protection orders granted in the District Court, with 1,502 safety orders also granted in this court.

The District Court in 2008 also granted 445 interim barring orders.

A Catholic nurse in New York is taking legal action after her employers obliged her to assist with a late-term abortion.

Leading gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has welcomed the decision of the House of Lords to keep a free speech protection in a controversial ‘anti-hate’ law.

An experienced paediatrician is to lose her place on an adoption panel because she doesn’t think adoption by same-sex couples is best for children.

Charity shops are seeing an increase in the number of volunteers since the onset of the recession, as the newly unemployed seek to occupy themselves and retain some job skills during the downturn, according to a report in the Irish Times.

The number of people aged over 65 is on course to overtake the number of children under the age of five for the first time in world history, according to a study published yesterday.

Handing over schools currently run by the Church to “complex State bureaucracies whose efficiency has certainly yet to be proven” is not the way forward for Irish education, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said.

A London teacher who was suspended and threatened with the sack for expressing his Christian beliefs at work will be back at work next term.

A prominent secular British MP has attempted to use the Equality Bill to force the Scout Association to scrap the age-old tradition of new entrants pledging allegiance to God.

Most unmarried couples who live together aren't trying to test their relationship, according to a new US study of dating and cohabitation.