Aodhán Ó Ríordáin: Lift ban on gay blood donors

The ban on gay men giving blood should be lifted, Equality Minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has said.

He also said a proposed compromise, whereby gay and bisexual men would be allowed to give blood only if they had abstained from sex with men for a year, would be seen as “offensive”.

Health Minister Leo Varadkar is poised to make a decision on the ban — which was imposed at the height of the HIV/Aids panic in the mid-1980s — when a report is delivered in the next few months from the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS).