Lone parent benefits are currently predicated on the parent living alone. It could hardly be called ‘lone parent’ benefit otherwise. Once the lone parent marries or cohabits, however, the benefits are cut back meaning there is an incentive not to marry or cohabit. This is bad for the lone parent and bad for the children because children need fathers.

Does it matter who a child’s biological parents are, or is the only thing that matters who actually raises the child, who it has bonded with? There is a growing school of thought with respect to parenting that biological ties, or to put it another way, natural ties, matter hardly at all, if even that. I don’t know whether Alan Shatter is part of this school of thought but one could be forgiven for thinking that he is.

Equality Minister, Sean Power, today addressed the National Lesbian and Gay Federation at a symposium held at the Royal College of Surgeons. In his speech he dealt with the topic of same-sex civil partnerships. He said that due to the Constitution, same-sex couples would not be able to marry, nor could they be given the functional equivalent of marriage. However, he then went on to describe what the Government will give same-sex couples in its forthcoming civil partnerships Bill, and it looks an awful lot like marriage.

The head of the INTO, John Carr, delivered a very far-reaching and radical speech at an education conference last weekend. The implications of his speech are potentially immense. Essentially he wishes to see an end to State-funded denominational education and its replacement with what he calls ‘community national schools’.

The Swedish government is severely curtailing religious activities in Swedish schools. The restrictions will apply even to religious-run schools, including Church-run ones. The only religious activities that can be conducted on school property under these regulations will be prayer, so long as it is not communicated that there is any objective reality behind the prayer, and religion in religion class, so long as it is not communicated that the religion in question has any objective reality behind it.

The conceptual significance of the apparent Labour re-think on the value of marriage, particularly within the taxation system, is potentially significant. The United Kingdom introduced Tax Individualisation in 1990 under a Conservative administration after a conceptual swing towards an individualised tax system in the 1980s. Individualisation allows the Inland Revenue services to effectively ignore marriage and treats people purely as individuals for the duration of their working years regardless of responsibilities to a spouse or children. In general, the British Labour party was supportive of this type of policy as it was seen as advocating 'personal freedom' and 'tax neutrality'.

It's been a turbulent few weeks in British politics. In a little over three weeks, Labour have gone from being 11 points clear of the Tories to being seven points behind in the polls. Gordon Brown has gone from having an image of sturdy reliability to being perceived as a ditherer. The opposite has happened to David Cameron. Previously seen as a lightweight, he's now seen as a strong leader.

The vast majority of women today think it is a good idea to cohabit before getting married, according to the recent Irish Times’ survey of women’s attitudes. In fact, it is almost certainly a very bad idea. The conventional thinking is that cohabitation is a good idea because it functions as a kind of trial marriage. It’s a bit like test-driving a car before you buy it. A couple live together to find out if they are compatible and if they find out they are not, then they split up before they get married rather than endure a messy divorce later on. What could make more sense?

The Irish Times poll on Women Today in Ireland has thrown up a number of interesting, and a few alarming, findings. For instance the paper says that 42% of respondents are working in paid employment of necessity.

The Irish Times today has published a very interesting poll on women’s attitudes to life, love and everything. The paper highlights the fact that more women rate financial independence as ‘very important’ than they do any other facet of their lives.

How many parents can one child have? An adopted child can obviously have four parents, its two biological parents and its two adoptive parents. However, the adopted child will only have two legal parents.

How does the educational system best allow for, and recognise, religious diversity? There are two opposing views on this. The first says that schools should welcome in all children regardless of creed and then teach them all faiths.

The British divorce rate has fallen somewhat in the last couples of years. Why? Could it be that there is self-selection going on, that is, those who are temperamentally most likely to divorce are cohabiting instead, meaning those who are marrying are temperamentally more likely to stay married?

The latest call for the explicit recognition of children's rights in the Constitution comes via a report by Dr Ursula Kilkelly, a legal academic from University College, Cork. Dr Kilkelly argues that children are “invisible” in the current legal system.

Today's story showing that divorce in Ireland seems to be a middle-aged phenomenon shouldn't come as too much of a surprise for regular visitors to this website. A quick look at the Census figures on marriage in Ireland (which we have been highlighting for a few months now) shows that people in their 40s and 50s are most likely to experience marital breakdown.

Between the ages of 40 and 59, the rate of marital breakdown is considerably higher than the national average of 13 per cent. Between the ages of 40-44, for example, 16 per cent of people have experienced either divorce or separation.

According to Louise Crowley, a divorce law expert at the University of Limerick, the reason for this is simple: Irish divorce law. Divorce in Ireland, she points out, is “quite different to other jurisdictions” such as the US and the UK, where people who are married for five or six years are more likely to get divorced.

“I think a lot of it is down to the process itself,” Crowley says. “A couple may find that they are unhappy after three years of marriage. But the State dictates that they have to live separately for four or five years before they can apply for a divorce. Once the application is made it could be another two or three years before the divorce is granted.”

Quite apart from the seeming implication that we should allow quickie divorces like overseas, the problem with this analysis is that the likelihood of experiencing marital breakdown actually decreases once people pass middle age. Just under 10 per cent of people aged 65-69 have experienced separation or divorce, below the national average.

Ireland's divorce laws are the same for them as for everyone else, yet they are experiencing less divorce. Clearly, there is another trend at work.

Former Taoiseach, Garret Fitzgerald, in an Irish Times article some months ago, suggested that the reason this older age cohort tended to experience less marital breakdown was that they were raised in a culture where divorce was frowned upon. In contrast, those married in the 1970s came of age in an atmosphere where the gospel of individual autonomy was increasingly preached.

It is quite probable that this, rather than Ireland's admittedly unusual divorce laws, is behind the above average divorce figures among our 40 and 50-somethings.

24/08/07