The Government is to support calls in the United Nations for a global ban on human cloning, including the use of cloned embryos in medical research.
Two motions, one from Costa Rica calling for an outright ban and the other from Belgium seeking more limited curbs, are to go before the UN's Human Rights Committee today.
The Government signed up to become one of the co-sponsors of the Costa Rican motion, along with 61 other countries, last Thursday.
Responding to complaints from a Fine Gael TD, Mr Gay Mitchell, about the length to time it took to decide Ireland's stand, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, said: "Yes, we took our time, but it was an important decision."
Last month, in a written parliamentary question, the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, told Mr Sean Haughey (FF) that the Government was "totally opposed" to human cloning.
Currently, there is no national legislation banning human cloning, though the Medical Council has warned doctors that the creation of embryos for experimentation, or deliberate destruction, would amount to professional misconduct.
In his reply last month, Mr Martin said: "I am conscious of the degree of concern among the public about the absence of a statutory framework to regulate cloning and a range of other issues associated with the area of assisted human reproduction, including research on embryos."
However, he said it was "appropriate" to wait for the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction's report, which is due "in the next couple of months", the Department of Health and Children told The Irish Times last night.
The Sixth (Legal) Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, which deals with human rights, will debate the two motions today, along with a call from Islamic states to defer any decision.
All states in the United Nation agree that reproductive cloning, meant to produce a child with the same genes as its genetic parent, should be banned. But there agreement ends.
The Costa Rica motion, which is supported by the United States, would ban all forms of human cloning, including the creation of a cloned embryo for any reason.
The second motion, led by Belgium but supported by 22 others, would permit the cloning of embryos for medical experiments, and the clones would then be destroyed.
Known as therapeutic cloning, scientists can then use this still-experimental process to implant the nucleus of an adult donor cell into an egg whose nucleus has been removed.
The embryos can then be worked on by scientists who hope to develop tissues to treat human degenerative diseases.
Some of the countries supporting the Belgian motion, including Britain, China and Japan, argue that the UN should copper-fasten the global support for a ban on human cloning.
