CLANE Hospital in Co Kildare has denied it will freeze embryos at its planned fertility clinic.
The chief executive rejected reports in the Irish Medical Times and the Sunday Times that the move is being considered.
Mr Sean Leyden said the clinic, to be established at Clane by the Cambridge based Bourn Hall Clinic, will offer the standard fertility treatments already available in the State at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, and University College Hospital, Galway. These treatments do not involve freezing of embryos.
He said the medical director of Bourn Hall, Dr Peter Brinsden, had called for a debate in Ireland on the issue of freezing embryos. Unless there was such a debate and the outcome was favourable to freezing embryos, it would not happen.
Clane "won't be the flag bearers on the issue, he said.
The clinic, to be opened in September, would be a joint venture between Clane Hospital and Bourn Hall, he said. Bourn Hall was already holding an out patient clinic in Celbridge, Co Kildare, once a month and flying patients to England for treatment.
When the Clane clinic opens, patients will be flown to England only if the treatment is particularly complicated.
He estimated the average cost of a treatment at £1,500 to £2,000.
Dr Harith Lamki, chairman of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said the institute had set up a committee to look at the issues surrounding assisted pregnancy.
"It would be wrong of me to presume what they are going to recommend to us," he said.
At the end of the day, the only people whose views had force was the government who made the laws, he said.
The Medical Council's current ethics guidelines on in vitro fertilisation were written by the institute and state:
"The following guidelines should be adhered to by doctors practising IVF:
1. Couples must be appropriately counselled, understand the method and give informed consent prior to embarking on IVF.
2. All fertilised embryos produced by IVF should be replaced; optimally this should be three in any treatment cycle.
3. Sperm and eggs from the consenting couple will be used on all IVF procedures.
4. IVF is a clinical technique used for the treatment of selected cases of human infertility; in no circumstances should it be used to produce or store human embryos for research purposes."
Efforts to obtain a comment from Bourn Hall Clinic yesterday were unsuccessful.