Bruton regrets suspension of vasectomy clinic services

THE Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, has said he regretted the decision of the North Western Health Board to suspend services at the vasectomy clinic in Letterkenny.

Speaking in Letterkenny yesterday, where he opened Exhibition 2090, a small industries enterprise, he said a vasectomy clinic would be supplied in the area, "if not in Letterkenny, then somewhere else".

Meanwhile, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, Dr Mehaffey, has welcomed the latest remarks on the vasectomy controversy from his Catholic counterpart in Raphoe. He said that comments from Dr Philip Boyce reported in this newspaper yesterday, had been "a very good clarification".

He welcomed what Dr Boyce had to say "both in the way he said it and in the substance of what he said".

Both churches, he said, "greatly respect" each other's point of view. They may take different standpoints sometimes, "but the two are big enough and Ireland is big enough to accommodate both points of view". That's what was needed in Ireland, North and South, he said, "probably more so in the North".

He was critical of the manner in which some media had reported the differences between both bishops on the issue. It had been "set up as a confrontation" he said. Two newspapers in the Republic which had reported on the matter in such terms "had had no contact with me whatsoever", he said. "The presentation by some journalists left a lot to be desired," he felt.

Since their differences came to light last week over the Letterkenny clinic, he had "been in touch" with Dr Boyce, he said. He spoke of "the mutual trust" that had been built between them since Dr Boyce came to Raphoe 18 months ago.

With meetings of the health board's two standing committees taking place this morning, to discuss the clinic, he "would certainly hope the board would be able to fulfill its obligations, as laid down by law", he said. "The people should be given a choice," he believed, "it is not a question of supporting one moral point of view, it's a question of supplying choice in family "planning matters". But he remained "confident" that the board would apply such a service.

The chairman of the North Western Health Board, Mr Harry Blaney, said he "knew Dr Mehaffey very well", and that it was "a matter for himself and his congregation what he said". But his "first consideration" was "to serve the people I iv as elected to represent". He believed the vasectomy service was "not a priority".

Other services were needed more urgently "with people in great pain for years". If those other services were being provided "then things might be different, I don't know". He had "a moral conviction" on the issue, but he was not going "to push that down someone else's throat.

"We are a health board," he said, "and our job is to supply what was best for people, from a medical point of view."

Local Fianna Fail TD, Dr Jim McDaid, thought it "regrettable" that the health board should have suspended the vasectomy service. He felt it illustrated "a lack of understanding of what is involved of the entire issue," and was "an affront to women", particularly those in their later reproductive years who for medical reasons cannot take the pill.

The people of Donegal had "a right" to such a service, he said, and particularly as money had been set aside solely for its provision by the Department of Health. He also thought that picketing of the hospital was wrong.