GLEN has welcomed reports that the board of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service will recommend to the Minister for Health to remove the permanent ban on blood donation by gay men.

Northern Ireland's controversial lifetime ban on gay men donating blood is to end.

The Irish Blood Transfusion Service’s deferral policy, which imposes a lifelong ban on blood donations from any man who has ever had sex with another man, is being examined at a Royal College of Physicians conference.

The Gay and Lesbian Equality network is welcoming moves to lift the ban on gay men donating blood.

I would be more than happy to make a blood donation, regardless of the current level of the blood supply in Ireland.

France is to end its ban on blood donations by gay men, its health minister said, calling the move the end “of a taboo and discrimination”.

The European Court of Justice has ruled that EU governments may ban gay men from ever donating blood, but only under strict conditions.