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 Irish Times report that Department of Education and Church officials are continuing to work on identifying areas where the Catholic Church is prepared to hand over control of school management to other patrons.

The department is using new technology to identify areas where there will be rapid population growth and those where a better mix of patrons is required. The Catholic Church controls more than 90 per cent of primary schools in the country.

Speaking at the annual conference of the Irish Primary Principals Network (IPPN), Mr O’Keeffe said the department and the church were working together in the process. But he said nothing would be done without full consultation with school communities, which would probably involve a plebiscite to test local views. Discussions would also have to take place with alternative patrons.

The multidenominational group Educate Together – which the Minister praised for its management of primary schools in the Dáil this week – is one group that could take over management of the schools.

However, local vocational education committees could also have a key role. Two new State-run community primary schools have been established on a pilot basis under the aegis of the Co Dublin VEC.

Separately yesterday, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin supported Cardinal Seán Brady’s defence of the role of the Catholic Church in education. He said that if parents wanted to send their children to a Catholic school, then it should have the right to Government funding if the school complied with the State curriculum.

Speaking at the Davos economic summit in Switzerland, Dr Martin said that religious schools of any persuasion should be State-funded if they met standards applied in other schools.

“I have no difficulty with Islamic schools, but the teachers have to be of the same calibre as teachers in any other school in the country and the Department of Education has a responsibility to make that happen,” he said.

Dr Martin said that the difficulty with this debate was that it was starting from an anachronistic position where 95 per cent of primary schools were run by the Catholic Church.

“I have no interest in being a manager of a school which is Catholic in name – that is not my business. I would like to see Catholic schools that are genuine Catholic communities for parents who want them,” he said.

He said that he wasn’t sure that “a simple monolithic structure” in education was the best.

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.