THE Society for the Protection of Unborn Children will seek the intervention of the Attorney General - if it believes students' unions are providing abortion information in breach of the law.
Speaking after yesterday's Supreme Court decision on costs in the case of SPUC v Grogan and Others, the society's long running legal battle with three students' unions, Dr Mary Lucey, the president of SPUC, said that the society would monitor the activities of the three students' unions involved and report them to the Attorney General if they broke the law.
"This is one battle in a war and we will continue to fight against abortion", Dr Lucey said. "The war is against those who would help people who would terminate or kill unborn life."
Representatives of the three unions involved - the Union of Students in Ireland, Trinity College Dublin Students' Union and University College Dublin Students' Union - have not ruled out the possibility of continuing to publish abortion information. They said that they would be seeking legal advice and consulting with their memberships before publishing any further information on the subject.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court ordered the three unions to pay the costs of the plaintiffs for the 1992 High Court hearing, which granted SPUC a permanent injunction preventing the publication of abortion information in students' union guidebooks.
Last week, the Supreme Court allowed an appeal by the unions which lifted the injunction, ending a case which had begun in 1989.
SPUC was ordered to pay the costs of the students in their Supreme Court appeal while both sides will pay their own costs in an earlier appeal to the European Court of Justice.
The Chief Justice, Mr Justice Hamilton, said that the court had sought the "most just and equitable" way of dealing with the costs of "this contentious issue".
Dr Lucey said she "did not understand" the decision on the European costs, since the court had found that the State could prevent the publication of abortion information in this jurisdiction.
Representatives of the three unions said that they were happy with the decision on costs. "It's a pretty good result", said Mr Colman Byrne, the president of USI. "The best result we could have hoped for would have been that we were awarded all the costs for everywhere, but maybe that was bust a pipe dream. So this was a very fair result and one that we are very, very pleased with."
Despite speculation that the costs could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, the total costs are unlikely to reach that level and the future of all three unions appears to be secure.
Mr Byrne said he was not certain of the costs involved, but it is understood that they could amount to between £60,000 and £100,000. The unions' costs will also depend on whether SPUC decides to seek its costs.
Yesterday, sources close to SPUC indicated that the society may not pursue the costs, although the matter had not yet been fully discussed. SPUC has already claimed over £40,000 in costs from the unions resulting from the 1992 High Court decision.
Mr Fergus Finnegan, president of the TCD Students' Union, the most impoverished of the three unions involved, described the decisioa on costs as "very fair".
"That spectre called SPUC no longer hangs over students' unions", he said. "Now we have to get on with providing representation to our members and protecting the jobs of our 16 employees. Those jobs were under threat because of this case. Now those employees can breathe a sigh of relief."
In last week's Supreme Court judgment it was indicated that the unions could face criminal prosecution if they breached the conditions set down for the provision of abortion information under the Regulation of Information (Services Outside the State for Termination of Pregnancies) Act, 1995.
Under the 1995 Act the provision of information on abortion services to the general public is limited. Such information can only be supplied to pregnant women in certain circumstances after they have been counselled on the other available options.
Mr Byrne said that USI would "not necessarily" cease publishing abortion information if threatened with criminal proceedings, but added that he was anxious to seek a fresh mandate from his membership on the issue. "I would be very surprised ii, under my leadership, USI got itself tied up in another court battle which would be there for nine years", he said.
Both Mr Finnegan and Mr Shane Fitzgerald, president of the UCD Students Union, said they were seeking legal advice on the matter. Mr Fitzgerald said that while the unions were mandated to provide abortion information, the manner in which that information was provided was open to change.