The Mother and Baby Homes Commission is obliged under human rights law to provide information to family members about where their relatives are buried — despite claiming it is legally prohibited from doing so.

As is often the case in matters as sensitive as those facing the Mother and Baby Homes Commission conflicts of interest arise.

A report examining if it is possible to start taking DNA samples from survivors of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home to help identify hundreds of children who died there will be published "in the coming weeks".

The Law Society of Ireland has called for a substantial overhaul of Ireland's divorce regime.

The Constitution is not the appropriate place to determine the rules of divorce, Arts Minister Josepha Madigan will claim today.

A member of the Child Care Proceedings in the District Court Research Group will tell an Oireachtas Committee that there is "professional frustration and concern regarding a lack of consistency between courts and about how child care proceedings should be conducted".

Tusla is seeking an urgent meeting with Scouting Ireland amid growing concerns for the safety and protection of children.

The latest revelations by Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, that it still has “serious concerns” over the ability of Scouting Ireland to keep children safe, are shocking and disturbing and will be a great worry to parents and guardians of young people who take part in scouting.

The excavation of hundreds of infant remains in Tuam will begin in late 2019, the Taoiseach has confirmed.

The State may be party to the “continuing offence” of preventing a lawful and decent burial unless it fully exhumes, sorts, and buries any infant remains that are found in unmarked plots connected to former mother and baby homes.

The potential state exposure over Tuam is clear. It could be accused of being a party to an ongoing criminal offence, writes Conall Ó Fátharta

The remains of hundreds of infants buried in a mass grave in Tuam will be exhumed as part of a “full forensic examination” of the site of the former mother and baby home.

A memo will go to the Government “in the coming weeks” outlining how to deal with the infant remains found at the site of the former mother and baby home in Tuam.

Any audit of adoption records needs to examine all forms of illegal adoption and not just illegal birth registrations.

A scoping exercise into hundreds of thousands of the State’s adoption records may reveal thousands of people who have no idea they were illegally adopted.

The ISPCC has recorded a sharp rise in demand among children for its Childline online services — at a time when it is facing a shortage of volunteers.

A 24-hour social work service is a critical requirement for children in need, according to the ISPCC.

The ISPCC is calling for the urgent introduction of a 24-hour social work service for vulnerable children.

Niall Muldoon looks at child protection in other jurisdictions and learns how it is vital to unify activities between law enforcement and social work

The Child and Family Agency chopped €1m off its bill for sending Irish children to secure care placements in other countries last year.

The Government is set to press ahead with a statutory inquiry into a case which sparked a string of arrests across Munster earlier this month over alleged child sex abuse.

Parents who groom or coerce their children to commit crimes, including shoplifting or theft, could be jailed for up to 10 years, new legislation proposes.

Is childhood a thing of the past? Seems so, when the Children’s Rights Alliance is in favour of the Government’s decision to set the so-called digital age of consent at “the lowest age possible” which in this case is 13 years.

The Government may be obliged to “fully investigate” the deaths of thousands of children who died in Ireland’s mother and baby homes under human rights law.

Filmed in February, 2015, the footage of three London teenagers at Gatwick Airport, beginning a journey so they might join the Isis terror campaign, remains one of the most chilling of recent years.

Gardaí need greater powers to protect children from online predators including the ability to obtain data from companies such as Facebook and Microsoft.

The country’s creaking family law court system is coming under increasing strain from expanding case loads, unacceptable delays and inadequate facilities, the body for solicitors has said.

Children’s rights groups have marked the fifth anniversary of the passing of the children’s referendum by claiming there is still some distance to go before the rights enshrined in the Constitution are fully vindicated.

Children's Minister Katherine Zappone will lead a fact-finding mission to New York starting today to improve state agency co-operation on child protection.

Children are regularly treated as “passive spectators” in the debate on adequate housing in Ireland, a conference on homeless children in Galway heard yesterday.

The number of child protection and welfare referrals lodged with Tusla last year rose 9% to 47,399, according to the Child and Family Agency’s annual report.

The Government's head of child protection says it's too early to say he has confidence in reforms to protect children from abusive homes.

Children's Minister, Katherine Zappone, says protecting, supporting and caring for children is her mission and the mission of Tusla.

The head of the Chid and Family Agency, Tusla, has defended returning children home after they have been removed by gardaí for their own protection.

The charity behind Childline has said the phone service has received an increasing number of calls from children concerned about homelessness.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said disturbing conditions for children, revealed by a damning report, must cease as the Government faced calls to audit all services and retrain gardaí.

Enda Kenny has said he was upset by the findings of a damning review into how state agencies work together when at-risk or troubled youngsters are removed from their families.

The Government is to review all emergency out-of-hours services for children amid persistent fears that large swathes of the country don’t have the supports to protect minors from “barbaric treatment” in the home.

Prof Shannon’s report details barbaric abuse of children by parents, writes Cormac O’Keeffe.

Gardaí investigating child sex offences should have the power to seek a court order to obtain data from internet giants based here, according to a leading expert.

Revelations relating to mother and baby homes have brought Ireland’s “shameful indifference” to the rights of adopted people and natural mothers to the fore.

Adopted people are being stigmatised in the same manner as their mothers were, decades before, with the Government’s proposed new information and tracing legislation.

Children born of a surrogate mother could find themselves in a legal tug-of-war if proposed laws follow the English model, it has been claimed.