The Director of The Iona Institute, David Quinn, was one of the speakers at a conference on religion and the EU organised by Fine Gael MEP, Gay Mitchell, that took place on Wednesday in the parliament building of the European Union in Brussels.

The Catholic Church should be removed from its role in primary education as a matter of urgency, a former general secertary of the Labour Party has said.

Single parents are set to lose their lone-parent allowance payment when their child hits the age of 13, it has been revealed. However, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs Minister Mary Hanafin yesterday insisted any changes to the One-Parent Family Payment will be phased in over a number of years.

Children living with a single parent who had a cohabiting partner in the household are at most risk of abuse and neglect, according to a new US government report.

Harriet Harman has indicated that she will not try to overturn the House of Lords votes on the Equality Bill which preserved religious groups’ employment freedoms.

Sex education classes that focus on encouraging children to remain abtain from sex can persuade a significant proportion to delay sexual activity, according to new US research which has been described as "game-changing".

The Pope has attacked the UK Government's equality laws, which he says instead of making society more equal, will limit religious freedom and is therefore an attack on natural justice.

A well-known child law academic has said that the Lisbon Treaty could have a major impact on children’s rights in the Irish courts.

Local referenda are expected to be held in each area where the Catholic Church agrees to relinquish control of its schools, Minister for Education, Batt O’Keeffe said yesterday.

The Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, has strongly defended the contribution of Catholic schools and the principle of parental choice.

In Wednesday’s resumed Dail debate on the Civil Partnership Bill, Fine Gael TDs Lucinda Creighton, Leo Varadkar and Seymour Crawford have all come out in favour of an amendment to the Bill in order to protect freedom of religion, although they differ on the amount of protection that should be given to freedom of conscience.

A Christian family from Germany have been granted political asylum in the US after facing the threat of prison for home schooling their children.

The divorce rate in Britain has fallen to a 29-year low, official statistics revealed.

The Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, has again rejected calls for the inclusion in the Civil Partnership Bill of a conscience protection for civil registrars.

Fine Gael TD Damien English has come out in support of a limited conscience amendment to the Government's Civil Partnership Bill.

Ruairí Quinn, the Labour Party spokesperson on education, has said parents should have a choice of schools to which they can send their children.

The UK Government has lost in the House of Lords over its attempt in the Equality Bill to alter the law on who churches and other faith-based groups can employ in ways the Churches believe will be detrimental to religious freedom.

The HSE took 300 more children into care last year as compared to 2008. A report presented to a meeting of the HSE earlier this month shows there were 5,694 children in care at the end of November 2009, up from 5,396 in January 2009 – a 5.5 per cent increase.

The Government's Civil Partnership Bill ought to have a conscience opt-out clause, Fine Gael TD Sean Barrett has said.

In last night's debate on the Bill, Deputy Barrett said that, while he supported the Bill, he did not believe that a registrar “who has a genuine religious difficulty with his or her conscience should be imprisoned for six months and to do so would be ridiculous in this day and age”.

He dismissed as “ridiculous” suggestions from the Government benches that if such a clause were introduced “ people in hotels would refuse to rent out a room or that people would refuse to serve meals”.

Gay couples, he said, “stay in hotels and have meals like anyone else and are entitled to so do”.

“I have never come across an instance of anyone being refused,” Deputy Barrett continued. “Consequently, putting up such arguments is ridiculous.”

He referred to a proposed amendment to the UK Equality Bill, put forward by the former Lord Chancellor of England and Wales, Lord Mackay, which was intended to protect religious conscience there, and suggested that the Government look at it and consider it.

He added that it would be “worthwhile to try to understand other people’s points of view and to relieve them of any difficulties they may have with regard to their own conscience”.

Deputy Barrett welcomed the fact that the Bill dealt with same-sex relationships, saying that the legislation endeavoured to “ensure that if something happens, such as a break-up or a death of one of the parties, there is protection for the other partner”.

Government deputies speaking on the Bill rejected any notion of allowing for a conscience opt-out clause in the Bill.

Junior Minister at the Department of Finance, Martin Mansergh, said that a conscience clause for public servants such as civil registrars to refuse to register same-sex unions on conscience grounds “would in effect amount to discrimination”.

“My view is that if one takes up a public appointment, one must carry out the duties that the law prescribes and those duties will change from time to time as the law changes. We should not give sanction effectively to homophobia for conscientious reasons,” Minister Mansergh said.

Fianna Fáil TD, Michael Fitzpatrick claimed that such a clause “would give an absolute right to discriminate against people who are registered as civil partners”.

Providing such an exemption, he continued “could lead to serious unintended consequences and the withholding of services”.

“A bank could refuse to allow a couple to operate a joint account, a restaurant could refuse to take a booking for two men or a person may be unable to visit his partner in a hospital run by a religious order,” Deputy Fitzpatrick said.

Fianna Fáil TD Chris Andrews claimed that the Bill would “have no negative impact” because it built on previous equality legislation and that this legislation dealt “with the issue of freedom of conscience” already. He did not specify how it did this.

Ciaran Lynch, a Labour TD from Cork, questioned the “motivation and intent” people trying to add a conscience clause. “There should be no opt-out clause,” Deputy Lynch said.

“If a person is a public servant, he or she has functions to perform. There is a separation between theocracy and democracy, and a civil partnership registration is a secular event, not a religious one,” he continued.

22/01/10