UPDATE 10.25pm:  The United Nation’s latest condemnation of Ireland’s abortion laws are “bordering on the ridiculous” according to the Pro Life Campaign.

The State’s formal recognition of Irish Travellers as an indigenous ethnic minority is an historic day for Ireland.

The offer of compensation to a woman who successfully complained to the United Nations about Ireland’s abortion laws, is a recognition by the State that she was subjected to “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment because she was forced to travel to seek an abortion, the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) has said.

Today’s child summit marks a turning point as it brings together agents of change with the very policymakers who have the power to implement them, says Tanya Ward

Stop discriminating against children on religious grounds was the blunt message delivered to the State by the UN committee reviewing the country’s protection of children’s rights.

Get a taste of some of the interesting and quirky happenings in Europe from our Europe correspondent, Ann Cahill

Parents should not be forced to have their children baptised to get a place in a State-funded school, Children’s Minister James Reilly has said, adding that it might be possible to change the situation through legislation rather than a referendum.

A UN committee will today hear that a great deal more work needs to be done on behalf of Irish children, writes Emily Logan

The Children’s Rights Alliance has urged a UN committee which will review Ireland’s record on children to make recommendations, including urging a ban on corporal punishment and a review of the gardaí’s Pulse system.

Proposals to firm up the law against slapping children will not go far enough without support for parents struggling with discipling and controlling their offspring, the Children’s Rights Alliance has warned.

The Mews Restaurant, Baltimore, West Cork

The Government has no plans to implement a law passed 11 years ago to give automatic entitlement to school care and teaching support to children with disabilities.

This week the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights published its concluding observations on Ireland, finding the Government is failing to deliver on human rights obligations.

A UN committee has called on Ireland to take “all necessary steps” to revise its abortion laws to bring them into line with international human rights standards.

The Government is adopting economic policies with no regard for their effect on people’s welfare or rights despite their continuing to increase poverty, according to a UN committee reviewing Ireland’s social rights commitments.

The Justice for Magdalenes group is gearing up to sue the State over the hundreds of women who died and were buried in mass and often unmarked graves.

The Government’s approach to child poverty has been severely criticised by the Children’s Ombudsman.

Leo Varadkar will meet with the Survivors of Symphysiotomy at the Department of Health this afternoon to receive an update on the Redress Scheme.

Given this country’s abysmal record on human rights, it is not surprising that Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald is facing a baptism of fire while a bevy of civil servants are subjected to a barrage of penetrating questions from members of the UN committee on human rights in Geneva.

The recent UN Human Rights report on the Catholic Church belongs in the category of ‘you couldn’t make it up’.

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 denounced the Vatican for “systematically” adopting policies that allowed priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children over decades, and urged it to open its files on paedophiles and the bishops who concealed their crimes.

The Vatican “systematically” adopted policies that allowed priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children over decades, a UN human rights committee said today.

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.

Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests in two years for molesting children, a document obtained by the Associated Press shows.

A top Vatican official has told a UN committee that responsibility for the Magdalene Laundries scandal lies solely with the Irish authorities.

The Vatican has come under blistering criticism from a UN committee for its handling of the global priest sex abuse scandal, facing its most intense public grilling ever over allegations that it protected paedophile priests at the expense of victims.

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 Department of the Environment said it has no record of being written to by a UN committee investigating whether Ireland was properly consulted in Britain’s decision to build a new nuclear power plant.

Ireland and other countries that colluded with the kidnapping and torture of terror suspects by the CIA must investigate and atone for their actions, the Council of Europe’s human rights chief has said.

The UN committee which forced the Government to investigate the Magdalene Laundries has criticised the McAleese report into them as “incomplete” and lacking “many elements of a prompt, independent, and thorough investigation”.

The Justice for Magdalenes group has lodged a complaint with the UN Committee Against Torture, saying it is concerned that the Government has not complied with the committee's recommendations.

Department of Justice officials said it would “never be their intention” to treat the Office of the Children’s Ombudsman “with anything other than the highest of respect”.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin called for fresh inquiries into care in the Magdalene laundries, mother-and-baby homes, and other institutions, to examine where the Church, serving the most deprived, went wrong.

The low number of prosecutions for the violence and sex attacks suffered by children in religious-run institutions has been criticised by Amnesty International.

Ireland is being urged to implement a number of human rights treaties to protect vulnerable people such as those with disabilities, migrants and prisoners.

The Government is to investigate the State’s role in alleged abuse at the Magdalene Laundries.

The United Nations is considering creating separate terrorism blacklists for al-Qaida and the Taliban, a political gesture that could spur possible Afghan peace talks.

AN INDEPENDENT and effective complaints body such as a prison ombudsman must be established to ensure prisoners are protected from ill-treatment and from reprisals as a consequence of their complaints, the UN Committee Against Torture has recommended.

THE campaign for justice for the Magdalenes, for the so-called “fallen women” who were grossly mistreated in a chain of laundries run by nuns, has been resoundingly vindicated by the call for an independent investigation into the scandal from the United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT).

The United Nations watchdog on torture has criticised Ireland’s prison conditions and accused the state of failing to protect women confined to Catholic Church workhouses.

A UN committee urged the Government to set up an independent investigation into human rights violations in the Magdalene Laundries and give redress to the women who suffered because of the institutions.

THE Government has slumped to a D grade average in a review of its policies on children from a coalition of 90 groups around the country, who described the Government’s performance as “barely acceptable”.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) says the issues of overcrowding and slopping out in Irish prisons need to be addressed as a matter of urgency.