Learned lecture lays the blame for society’s ills at single mothers’ door

ON WEDNESDAY next in Boole Lecture Theatre 4 at UCC, to mark Cork being European Capital of Culture for 2005, Dr Edward Walsh will deliver a well-attended lecture.

It’s safe to predict high attendance, not just because Ed Walsh is a major figure in Irish public life, nor because he is president emeritus of the University of Limerick, nor even because the lecture, at 8pm, is free and open to anyone. Its content, flagged in advance, is what will ensure a substantial audience.

As this newspaper has revealed, Dr Walsh will suggest that children from lone-parent backgrounds are more likely to be involved in delinquency and crime, that some lone-parent teenagers get “preferential treatment” for housing benefits and that the absence of father figures destabilises Irish society.