The leaders of the Catholic Church need to condemn anti-abortion groups that are disseminating “vile and vitriolic” flyers and issuing violent threats to TDs, said the chair of the Oireachtas committee.

Cork householders have hit out at an anti-abortion group that has compared abortion to the Holocaust.

Leaflets criticising the TD who chairs the Dáil committee hearing opinion on legislating for the X case, and likening abortion to the Holocaust, are being sent to homes in Cork.