The Department of Justice has said it has no remit in trying to stop asylum-seekers from travelling to the UK for abortions.
Responding to the publication of figures showing that more than 40 asylum-seekers living in the State got permission to travel to the UK to terminate their pregnancies, a Department spokesman said: "We are not here to moralise."
On the issuing of temporary travel documents to immigrants and asylum-seekers, he said: "We don't ask people whether they are going for abortions. But if they said they wanted to go for an abortion we would issue them with a docket.
"People will only be stopped if they are looking to gain illegal access into another country. The only concern we have is immigration and control."
The figures, which were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and previously published in The Irish Times, showed 20 asylum-seekers had been granted temporary exit and re-entry visas to travel to Britain for abortions in the first eight months of 2003.
Ten women were granted similar visas in 2002, eight in 2001 and two in 2000.
The Department said about 270 temporary travel documents were issued this year to immigrants and asylum-seekers but it was unaware of what proportion of this total was for abortions.
Pro-Life Campaign spokesman Mr John Smyth said that while it was "impracticable" to stop people from travelling abroad, "the Government has a responsibility to ensure that members of the different ethnic communities in Ireland are made fully aware of the work of existing caring agencies, offering positive alternatives to abortion".
Latest figures from the British Department of Health show 6,490 women and girls providing Irish addresses had terminations in England and Wales in 2002, a drop of 135 on the previous year.
More than a third (2,239) of these were aged 20-24 years, 1,611 were aged 25-29
years, and 920 aged 30-34 years. A total of 54 were aged under 16 years.
A further 1,382 women travelled from Northern Ireland to England and Wales for abortions in 2002 due a similar legal prohibition in the North.
