Berkeley Street, Inns Quay, Dublin 7

This morning.

Ellen Coyne, in The Times Ireland edition, reports:

Simon Harris has published a new proposal designed to crack down on rogue crisis pregnancy agencies.

The Health and Social Care Professionals Act will include plans for a 13-person board to set minimum standards for the profession in early 2018. The department of health told The Times that counsellors who claim to offer objective advice to pregnant women will also be included.

The health minister said in September last year that he wanted to legislate against anti-abortion groups posing as crisis pregnancy counsellors.

His move followed an investigation by The Times that revealed groups told women that abortion caused breast cancer and could turn them into child abusers.

Crisis pregnancy agencies not in receipt of state funding are not regulated by the HSE. The government said that it would fix the anomaly several times over the past year but repeatedly missed its own targets for doing so.

Minister set to take on pregnancy groups (Ellen Coyne, The Times)

Previously: Behind The Blue Door