IRELAND and parental rights.

Imagine that, following the death of a child’s father, the entirely irreproachable mother was required to enter into a competition with the girlfriend of the deceased man to win the right to continue parenting her own child. Imagine if she were to lose. . . .

Relax, my liberal friends. This has not happened.

But here’s the thing: the essence of the story has in fact unfolded in this country in the past few months – just the other way around. In the above hypothesis, substitute the word ‘father’ for ‘mother’, and the word ‘boyfriend’ for ‘girlfriend’.