The chairwoman of the State Crisis Pregnancy Agency (CPA), Olive Braiden, said yesterday, that if the Bishops decided to instruct Cura to stop providing details of agencies which gave information on abortion, "it would cause a problem".
She said it was the CPA's view that the woman going for help must be "at the centre" of policy and should be facilitated "with all the information she needs in order to inform her decision".
The practice by the Catholic Cura pregnancy agency of giving details to clients about Irish agencies which have information on British abortion services, is expected to be discussed at the Bishops' conference next month.
Though the agenda for the June meeting of the Irish Episcopal Conference has not yet been finalised, a spokeswoman for the Dublin Archdiocese said Archbishop Dr Diarmuid Martin had raised the issue at the March meeting and asked for more detailed information on Cura's policy.
Dr Martin sought more details "in light of the overall principles of moral theology on co-operation and of the particular mission of Cura to provide alternatives to abortion".
It is understood a number of staff in Cura's Dublin office had raised concerns about the fact that its counsellors were providing contact details for other pregnancy advice agencies in this State which offered information on abortion services in Britain.
A spokeswoman for CPA stressed Cura was not itself providing contact details for abortion clinics in Britain. Pregnancy advice agencies are not legally obliged to provide information on abortion services, she explained.
However, the CPA operates a service level agreement with the nine organisations it funds, and they must sign up to this to get their funding. Cura receives core-funding of €600,000 per year. "The agreement guarantees that the CPA will respect the autonomy, identity and ethos of each and every organisation," said the CPA spokeswoman yesterday.
"The agreement also requires that organisations undertake a number of actions in relation to counselling services and standards. One of these undertakings is that the organisation implement a referral process to other bona fide service providers where the information or service requested by the client is not available from them."
In practice, she explained, this meant that if a woman with a crisis pregnancy attended a Cura counselling session and felt at the end that she wanted a termination, the counsellor would be obliged to point out that it was against Cura's ethos to advise on that option.
At that point, she said, the CPA would "consider it good practice" for the counsellor to provide the woman with the Positive Options leaflet from the CPA, which lists the eight other agencies and the services they provide.
Under the Dublin Well Woman entry for instance, the leaflet outlines the services offered as: "Pregnancy counselling by a professional counsellor who will give you full information on all the options available to you: abortion, adoption and parenting."
