Sinead O'Connor

The 'Nothing Compares 2 U' singer - who has been married four times - is upset by people's attitudes to sex in her native Ireland, and has created an unusual new dating rule for herself.

She said: "You're not allowed to talk about sex in Ireland. The last four boyfriends I've had, their mothers have refused to meet me because I wrote articles about sex. Now I have a rule - I don't go out with anyone whose mother isn't dead."

Sinead - who split from her last husband, Irish drugs counsellor Barry Herridge, last year - is also planning to move with her children, Jake, 24, Roisin, 16, Shane, eight and Yeshua, six, from Ireland to London.

She said: "There's nothing to do but drink. And I don't drink. Why don't they sell the whole thing to Australia?"

The 46-year-old singer also says her children are a "stabilising influence" on her and helped her to curb her hard partying ways.

She added in an interview with the Daily Mirror newspaper: "[Motherhood] certainly was a stabilising influence. I'm the type of rock 'n' roll chick that would have enjoyed staying up all night being under every drug under the sun. It was good I was a mother early so I couldn't be f****d up myself. And it influences your songwriting. It makes you concerned with issues that you wouldn't be if you weren't a parent."