The one-year delay in the final report of the Mother and Baby Homes Inquiry has received a mixed welcome from survivors.

The parents of the majority of pupils in infant classes could finally become liable for prosecution over non-attendance if a Labour Party bill becomes law.

Woeful inter-agency co-operation, a string of communication failures, and poor record-keeping characterised the case of ‘Mary’, the intellectually disabled young woman left in a foster home for more than two years after sex abuse allegations were levelled against her foster father.

An investigation into mother and baby homes could be widened to take in far more institutions as the Government has ordered a scoping exercise into the scandal.

A series of ministers have condemned US president Donald Trump’s “Muslim travel ban” amid cabinet calls for pre-clearance officials in Ireland to ignore the controversial policy.

A Government minister has urged colleagues to use their “very strong relationships” with Irish American politicians to block potential plans to remove thousands of illegal Irish immigrants from the US.

Supreme Court judge Mary Laffoy will head up the new Citizens’ Assembly which will examine the Eighth Amendment.

Health Minister Simon Harris has said he has to oppose a bill to liberalise the country’s abortion laws, even though he wants to support it.

Further focus on the teaching of literacy and closer links between schools and communities will feature in new Government efforts to tackle educational disadvantage.

Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, has defended its record on the retention of social workers following claims that its failure to hold on to experienced staff puts more children at risk of becoming the next ‘Grace’.

There were more than 200 significant or critical incidents involving young people in the Oberstown youth detention facility in a period of less than three years, according to figures released by the Department of Children.

The HSE should no longer have responsibility for overseeing medical card means tests, the final version of the Government’s report into the crisis-hit service is set to claim.

The Government has bowed to national and international pressure over the scandal of the death of 4,000 babies who were buried in unmarked, unconsecrated and mass graves at homes for unmarried mothers.

Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald has insisted that “no particular nationality or ethnic group” should be singled out in child protection cases after gardaí temporarily removed two children from separate Roma families.

Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald has said new childcare laws approved by Cabinet yesterday will strengthen the registration and regulation of pre-school services all over the country.

By the age of three disadvantaged children show signs of their upbringing, a new report has revealed.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have become the parents of a baby boy. He will never know poverty, will receive the best of care, attention and education, and live a life of inherited wealth and privilege. This wealth and privilege will be handed down to his successors.

Speaking in the wake of the children’s referendum, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the Government will respond “positively and wholeheartedly” and match the new legislation with appropriate action.

The Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald says she accepts James Reilly's reasons for adding two sites in his own constituency to a list of primary care centres.

The new Child and Family Agency to be set up next year will incorporate a range of services, including public health nurses and truancy officers, although its budget has yet to be decided.

Among vulnerable sections of Irish society, many people can justly claim to be victimised by the failure of politicians to legislate.

PRESSURE was last night mounting on the management of a Donegal school to explain why they continued to use paedophile Michael Ferry as a caretaker after he was convicted of sexual assault.

Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald has vehemently ruled out exempting the Catholic sacrament of confession from long-awaited rules on mandatory reporting of child abuse.

Pregnant women are more likely to drink if they are better educated, a report found today.

DESPITE the corrupting secrecy that does so much to block the advance of our social, political, economic, educational and legal development, we have been exposed to a litany of horrors over the last few years.

A retired bishop who mishandled clerical child sex abuse cases tonight resigned as head of a charity.

SIX months’ paid maternity leave for mothers is set to spearhead the Government’s drive to regain the initiative on childcare, it emerged last night.