Children as young as 11 becoming pregnant is a "child-protection issue" which is up to parents and other adults to resolve, the chief executive of the National Parents' Council (primary) said yesterday.
Responding to comments by Minister for Health Mary Harney, Fionnuala Kilfeather also called for the Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) component of the Social, Personal and Health Education programme to be taught by all schools. The effectiveness of this programme also needed to be evaluated.
"Schools that aren't teaching the RSE programme should really get their act together There is no reason to believe there aren't loads of schools who are not teaching it....Whatever ideological viewpoint you have, teaching the RSE programme would make a difference.
"It is not children's responsibility to look after these things.. The issue deserves to be approached from a position of parental responsibility."
Speaking at the publication of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency's annual report yesterday, Ms Harney said the morning-after pill should be made available to 11-year-olds in individual circumstances where required, but only with the consent of their parents.
However, according to Ms Kilfeather, while it was very rare to find children of this age in such a situation, the National Parents' Council had received calls from parents worried about the pressures which their children were under to lead certain lifestyles.
She said if a programme such as the RSE programme was introduced in consultation with parents - teaching values such as self-esteem rather than adopting a purely information-based approach - then this could make a real difference.
Hazel Nolan, president of the Union of Secondary Students of Ireland, said it would be "concerned" if any 11-year-old had to take the morning-after pill. Families should be allowed to discuss such a situation and have "all the options available" to them.
She added that many students found the sex education which they received in school limited.
"There is a lot they can't tell us because of the Catholic ethos of the school. In a lot of schools you are not allowed to show how to use a condom, and that's a basic necessity."