An expert group set up by the Ombudsman for Children’s Office to investigate areas of concern affecting children is due to deliver its report by the end of next month.

Freed from the constitutional constraints of the presidency, Mary McAleese, as a private citizen, rebuked Pope Francis for his qualified support for corporal punishment in the home, despite the Catholic Church being a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Vatican has hit back at a UN human rights committee that issued a scathing report on sex abuse by priests accusing it of straying beyond its mandate and discrediting the UN as a whole by adopting the “prejudiced” positions of anti-Catholic advocacy groups.

A UN human rights committee has denounced the Vatican for adopting policies that allowed priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children over decades, and urged it to open its files on the paedophiles and churchmen who concealed their crimes.

The Vatican is gearing up for a bruising showdown over the global priest sex abuse scandal, forced for the first time to defend itself at length and in public against allegations it enabled the rape of thousands of children by protecting paedophile priests and its own reputation at the expense of victims.

The latest report on protecting children in Ireland is wide-ranging, authoritative and warrants urgent action by Government.

As part of obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the Education Department needs to urgently update its 20-year-old anti-bullying policy to include cyberbullying and teach children about their rights online, according to a child law expert.

It’s easy to get lost in the details of the current amendment.

This referendum is not about protecting children. That is a smokescreen to blind us to the real agenda, says Richard Greene

FOR Children’s Ombudsman Emily Logan, the children’s rights referendum has been quite a while in coming.

The children’s referendum is a missed opportunity to deliver real change across a range of vital areas, writes solicitor Gareth Noble

De Valera’s Constitution of 1937 already contains two specific rights for children, though you are unlikely to know that from the partial information emanating from Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald’s website and being repeated by the likes of Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore.

The Irish Refugee Council has said it is awaiting legal advice as to whether children in the asylum system are included under the wording of the upcoming referendum on children’s rights.

The Children's Rights Alliance says a referendum on the rights of children will give the people the opportunity to protect future generation.

The Government must find an alternative to locking up young offenders next to hardened criminals in north Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison after pulling the plug on the Thornton Hall super-prison, it has been claimed.

The Children's Right's Alliance is calling on the Government to set a date for the Children's Right's Referendum as soon as possible.

WORK on the wording of the constitutional amendment on children’s rights is “nearly finished”, according to Minister for Children Barry Andrews.

The Pope today called for greater international effort to ensure basic human rights for children, saying he was praying for all young people who suffer.

The criminal justice system must be radically overhauled to give more protection to child sex abuse victims, it was claimed today.

IS it OK for us to introduce internment without trial in Ireland? Of course, we would seek to ensure that the only people interned were black people. Would that make it OK?

IRELAND’S performance on human rights is to be put under the spotlight for the first time next week when the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for human rights makes a week-long visit.

THE Big Ballot was a schools project organised by the Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan.

The rights of children all over the world will be marked later today in European Union House.

The Children's Ombudsman is calling on the Defence Forces to ban the recruitment of soldiers aged under 18.

A TROUBLED 15-year-old girl who has been using drugs and has gone missing 25 times this year has been further remanded in custody until Friday pending efforts to place her into foster care.

The ISPCC has published a series of 10 measures that it says are needed to ensure children are properly protected in Ireland.

IRELAND’S record on the rights of children is to be publicly criticised by the State’s human rights watchdog during a top United Nations investigation.

THE legal loophole which allowed ‘Mr A’ to walk free from court despite having sex with a 12-year-old girl is symptomatic of the Government’s inaction on children’s rights, according to the authors of a major new report which will be presented to the UN.

Two members of a powerful United Nations group will jet into Dublin today to examine at first-hand how Irish children are treated.

THE State’s official bodies for human rights and children yesterday rounded on Government plans on youth justice.

Warring couples on the brink of divorce are being offered help from a new charity launched today.

AN independent inspectorate is to be set up for child detention schools, Minister for Children Brian Lenihan said yesterday.

THE Government was last night urged to immediately end the deportation of migrant parents of children born in Ireland.

The Government was tonight urged to immediately end the deportation of migrant parents of children born in Ireland.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern has ordered a review of the Constitution to see what needs to be changed to give better rights to the family, which has undergone major transformation in the past 67 years.

Thousands of children are to benefit from a multi-million euro plan to build 32 playgrounds throughout the country, it was announced today.

Fianna Fáil TD Denis O’Donovan has insisted that the Government’s citizenship referendum poses no threat to the human rights of children born to non-nationals in Ireland.

THINK of the children and vote No in the citizenship referendum, the Children’s Rights Alliance urged yesterday.

The Children’s Rights Alliance has called for a ‘no’ vote in the Government’s citizenship referendum.

ASYLUM seekers who entered the country since May 1 have been refused child benefit and lone parent payments under controversial new social welfare rules.

CHILDREN, some as young as three, have told a government agency: “We want to have fun.”

JUSTICE MINISTER Michael McDowell was accused yesterday of seeking United Nations approval for plans which it is claimed will discriminate against unmarried and separated fathers.

LAST night reality TV got real with the first of a four-part series called For Better or Worse. It’s all about divorce, and RTÉ publicists say it will ‘break one last taboo’ in Irish society by looking at the reality of marriage break-up through the eyes of some of the people directly involved.