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David Quinn Opinion Schism is looming in the Catholic Church if Pope Francis doesn’t speak up

Would the real Pope Francis please stand up?

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David Quinn Opinion Do we really need a half-baked referendum for every ideology?

The Government has just announced we are to have a referendum later this year, probably in November, on the section of the Constitution which refers to a mother’s “duties in the home”.

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David Quinn Opinion We made mistakes in our response to Covid – and we need to face up to that

With the exception of sports events, always beware when you are asked to “put on the green jersey” — because there’s a good chance you are being rushed into supporting a position that almost certainly needs severe questioning.

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David Quinn Opinion ‘Ireland for All’ advocates need to tell us exactly what they mean by their slogan

Ireland until recently has been a very unusual country in that the issue of immigration has barely featured in national debate. Look across the rest of Europe and this is far from the case.

David Quinn: Sexist employers are not to blame for gender pay gap - children are

The row over the gender pay gap at RTÉ obscures a wider truth; nothing will finally eradicate the gender pay gap in society short of social engineering on so massive a scale that it would amount to an attack on the freedom of both men and women.

Media ignoring happy ending for abortion-order teen is fake news

Media bias is the functional equivalent of fake news. Fake news is intended to deceive and mislead the public. Media bias may not seek to deceive but it has the same effect of misleading the public by giving only one side of the story. Media bias is a huge problem in Ireland, so bad it is a problem for the healthy functioning of Irish democracy.

It's telling that we excuse Islam's 'aberrations', but not the Church's

It is time to put the Catholic Church "in the dustbin, where it belongs", left-wing TD Bríd Smith announced in the Dáil last week. There are strong echoes here of former US president Ronald Reagan, who once memorably said communism belonged in the dustbin of history.

Pro-life or pro-choice? St Vincent's board has huge moral decision to make

The big winners in the battle over the new National Maternity Hospital (NMH) are the doctors and accountants on the board of the St Vincent's Healthcare Group (SVHG). Not only will they own the new maternity hospital, they now effectively own and run the three hospitals the Order of the Sisters of Charity founded but is now quitting.

Brexit a rebellion by 'people of somewhere' against 'anywhere'

For a very brief period after the election of Donald Trump - it lasted for about a nanosecond - the liberal establishment paused to reflect on whether it had lost touch with a big portion of the electorate.

We need to ask ourselves just how much EU integration is too much

When Enda Kenny and the rest of the Cabinet fanned out to the four corners of the world to represent Ireland on St Patrick's Day, some journalists raised the concern that no senior politician would be here in Ireland if British Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article 50 that same week, thereby formally beginning the Brexit process.

Fifteen centuries after St Patrick, Christianity is worth hanging on to

Bishop Eamonn Casey has received mostly positive coverage since his death earlier this week.

Harsh Victorian morality at core of mother and baby home scandals

Attitudes to unmarried mothers and their babies have changed back and forth over the centuries. The historian Ivy Pinchbeck says that in medieval England, children born outside of marriage were not viewed as being as much of a problem as later and were absorbed into their mothers' communities and worked on the farms like everyone else.

Huge scale of immigration is making our housing crisis worse

When we are debating issues like housing, schools, jobs, wages, hospital places or welfare spending, we never seem to factor immigration and its effects into the debate.

Ignoring crimes by immigrants just plays into the hands of the far right

There is absolutely no debate to speak of in this country about immigration. That is typical of us. No debate is permitted about many things.

A good person who became focus of public anger over sex abuse scandals

My father was in school at the same time as Desmond Connell. I remember him telling me once that it was the opinion of the other boys in the school that the young Desmond Connell would become either an academic or a priest. Even then he was studious and serious-minded.

Vulgar Valentine's 'Late Late Show' opts to lie back and think of ratings

How low will 'The Late Late Show' go in its search for ratings? Very, very low it turns out. Last Friday night it aired a Valentine's Day special that made your average episode of 'Big Brother' look prim and proper by comparison. Words like embarrassing or cringe-worthy don't even begin to capture how bad it was.

Good Friday booze ban rare act of resistance to commerce - so keep it

The Licensed Vintners' Association and the Vintners' Federation of Ireland are back with their annual campaign to get rid of the rule that bans the sale of alcohol on Good Friday. They are most likely pushing an open door, even if it is taking longer than they might have expected to get their way.

Trump would be irresponsible to ignore danger of migrants

When German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the borders of Germany to all refugees in 2015, initially I thought it was a great idea. I've amended that opinion now, in light of the fact the policy was very badly thought out.

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Labour is out of Government - but it is never truly out of power

In terms of its policy agenda, what is the difference between this Government and the last one? It ought to be a pertinent question because the last government had Labour in it and this one does not.

Media's hostility is curbing its ability to hold Trump to account

For the first couple of years of my time in Australia, the premier of Queensland was a fellow by the name of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the head of the conservative National Party. He was a populist to his fingertips and quite like Donald Trump in many ways.

We should be more worried about rise of hard left than tiny alt-right

When did you first hear of the 'alt-right'? It might have been during the US presidential election, or else in the last few days following the appearance of someone defending the alt-right on 'Claire Byrne Live' on Monday night, an American by the name of Nicholas Pell. Or maybe you still haven't heard of it.

Try telling children from broken homes divorce is compassionate

The new year publication of selected State papers from 30 years before is an annual invitation to us to look down our noses on our recent past. We're invited to look back in horror at the battles of only a few decades ago over the likes of contraception, or sex education, or in this latest round, divorce. That's because 1986 was the year of our first divorce referendum.

500 years after the Reformation, politics now faces one of its own

The coming year will mark the fifth centenary of the start of the Reformation. In 1517, the German monk, Martin Luther, hammered his 95 'theses' to the church door at Wittenberg objecting to various practices within the Catholic Church, not least the sale of indulgences.

Even if you believe Christ was just a man, you have to admit human rights began with his humble birth

Even if you view Jesus Christ simply as a human being, not the Word Incarnate, on Christmas Day we still celebrate one of the most epochal events in world history; his birth. However you look it at, the birth of this man was the start of an immense, culture-changing series of events that have resonated through history, and in almost all parts of the world down to the present day.

Detox beds, not injecting rooms, are the answer to drug problem

It is now two years since Jonathan Corrie was found dead in a doorway near Leinster House. The incident caused much hand-wringing over the homelessness problem in Ireland. There was a call for more hostel beds.

It's not just 'Catholic zombies' who are rising to scare the mainstream

France's "Zombie Catholics Have Risen - and They're Voting", says the headline in the American journal, 'Foreign Policy'. The writer isn't best pleased about that. Clue? His use of the word 'zombie'. But his displeasure is kind of beside the point. The point is that in very secular France, millions of Catholic voters have suddenly emerged from the woodwork, or their graves if you prefer, and helped to make Francois Fillon the Republican party candidate and current favourite in next year's presidential election.

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Only a genuine hypocrite would deny Pope's right to speak out on abortion

People love Pope Francis to comment on politics when it suits them. The Pope was in Mexico earlier this year, not long after Donald Trump made his infamous remarks about Mexicans and "rapists" and building a wall. Speaking to journalists on the plane back to Rome afterwards, quick as a flash, Francis was asked to comment on Mr Trump's remarks.

Distorted reporting of symphysiotomy procedure is telling only half the story

We're told we live in a 'post-truth' age in which the facts are no longer sacred. Actually, we have been living in that era for a long time now and it is one to which the mainstream media has made a signal contribution.

Trump's win was a crushing blow to political correctness

What happens to political correctness when its ability to bully everyone into silence comes to an end? The Donald Trump victory signals that it is coming to an end. Strange as it may seem for someone like me to say, if it came to a complete end, that would be a bad thing because the basic instinct of political correctness is good; protect minorities.

'Conventional wisdom', based on contempt for voters, got it wrong

The decent thing to do now is to bury the conventional wisdom. Bury it in a marked grave as a reminder and a warning to others. Again and again it has led us up the garden path, again and again it has got it wrong.