Labour TD Sean Sherlock is upset because anti-Lisbon leaflets claiming (wrongly in my view) that the promised EU protocols will not protect Ireland against abortion etc have been put on display in two churches in the diocese of Cloyne.

Tonight in Cork city the recently graduated sixth years of St Vincent’s Catholic girls’ school will be holding their debs. The men accompanying the young women to the event will find an unusual item on their side-plates; a complimentary condom. Safe sex, or an invitation to have sex?

The 22 per cent pay gap between British men and women is “morally wrong”. So says the head of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips.

The CSO has issued a report today called ‘Measuring Ireland’s Progress’. It is full of detail on a whole range of issues from unemployment to the environment. Here are just a few things that struck me after a quick read of it, but to summarise; Sweden at first glance appears to be very sexist, but isn’t, and marriage is environmentally friendly.

Liberal cities are also anti-family cities. Show me a city with a high tolerance level for in-your-face porn, drugs, prostitution and so on and I’ll show you a place where you don’t want to bring up kids.

A few years I was spending upward of €15,000 per annum on putting two children full-time in a creche. I was earning pretty good money and resented it when stay-at-home mothers got any concessions. I felt that I had to work, like my husband, to pay a big mortgage etc.

Last week, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) released figures showing that, contrary to media reports, demand for childcare places is much smaller than we thought. Despite this, State policy continues to discriminate against stay-at-home mothers, and a new policy shift is about to make this even worse.

When the Kildare and Meath by-elections took place in 2005 we were led to believe that the single most pressing issue facing the country was the huge cost of child-care.

Attacks on religious believers under the guise of ‘human rights’ continue unabated. We keep tabs on these stories in the news section of our website. The sheer number of such cases is now frightening.

You may remember that, some months ago, the Pope was embroiled in a controversy after he pointed out that condom distribution wasn't the solution to the AIDS epidemic.

The number of Irish couples who cohabit has soared by 400 per cent in just 10 years to about a quarter of a million people in total. Cohabitation is mostly a prelude to getting married. Most of those who don’t marry break up instead. Very few people cohabit as a long-term alternative to marriage, not in Ireland at any rate.

If insanity can be defined as doing the same failed thing over and over again and expecting a different result, then the secular strategy for tackling teen sexuality and pregnancy has to be one of the most insane policies around.