Poor participation by men in parenting was raised at the conference as a key factor in discouraging women from keeping their children.
Professor Anthony Clare, medical director of St Patrick's Hospital, said the greatest failure of 20th-century society was "a failure of men to involve themselves in the deepest and most personal issues of human life".
He said men do not take seriously issues surrounding childrearing. "The serious issues are global economies and the IMF and our position in the world. When we start to talk about the family, children, life, marriage, personal relationships, these are, dare I say it, even in 1998, (seen as) women's work."
But John Waters, playwright and Irish Times columnist, said, "History does not show us that men are irresponsible. Men are not irresponsible." But men were discouraged from engaging themselves in parenting as they were discriminated against in law.
He said that both conservatives and liberals agreed that women have a greater affinity with children than men do, despite there being no evidence to support the claim. Research which showed that only 10 per cent of unmarried fathers sought guardianship of their children failed to take into account that the process cost £4,500 and resulted in no access rights.
In a well-received speech he said that the main way to make fathers face up to their responsibilities was to give them rights.
Ms Breda O'Brien, a teacher and journalist who helped to organise the conference, criticised the way in which "the world of paid work has evolved as if everyone were a single male without any family commitments. Any adult who wishes to take seriously his or her family responsibilities who is in full-time paid work will experience difficulties".
She said the key to making children more appealing to working parents was not improving childcare facilities but making available to them more opportunities for time off work.
"This raises terror in the minds of employers who see potential threats to competitiveness, loss of profit and complicated structures which will be difficult to manage."
However, she said, some companies in Britain which introduced more flexible work-practices for parents saw dividends in increased worker loyalty, fewer unexpected requests for leave and a reduction in stress or childcare-related sick leave.
