Guidelines for assisted human reproduction must be cemented by legislation, writes Catherine Shanahan.

UP to 8,000 couples attend Irish fertility clinics every year which results in 1,000 babies being born by assisted human reproduction techniques.

A Government watchdog is urgently needed for Irish fertility clinics that help up to 8,000 couples every year to have babies, it was claimed today.

HARDLY a week goes by but there are new stories which illustrate the fragility of human life at the extremes of conception and death.

THE commission had to wait a year and four months before it got an office and secretarial staff after it was set up by Micheál Martin in March 2000.