Harris: Religion will not determine health policy

Increasing access to and availability of contraception is and will remain public health policy, insisted Health Minister Simon Harris, responding to a bishop’s comments about birth control.

Bishop of Elphin, Kevin Doran, sparked outrage when he said the principles of Humanae Vitae, which banned artificial contraception, had been ignored for too long. “Please just make it stop,” the minister tweeted when he read the bishop’s comments, that were reported in the Irish Times over the weekend.