Minister for Health Mary Harney has said the Government will not be able to cut the cost of contraception by lowering the VAT rate on condoms.
She was speaking after the Crisis Pregnancy Agency said the cost of contraception was an issue it would try to address as it had been cited by 32 per cent of people as a factor discouraging them from using contraceptives.
The agency yesterday unveiled a five-year strategy identifying its priorities. These include improving adolescents' knowledge about relationships and sexuality and improving access to contraception.
The agency said it would develop policy proposals for both the Department of Health and the Department of Finance on how the cost of contraception could be minimised.
Speaking after unveiling the strategy, Ms Harney said EU regulations prevented the Government from cutting tax on contraceptives. She said the same issue had arisen with other areas of healthcare.
"Much and all as one would love to see some of these things happen, the reality is there are EU-wide implications - they certainly couldn't be done by us without reference to Europe, as I understand it," she said.
However, while there are EU regulations on taxation there is nothing to prevent governments from providing free contraception as is the case in the North and in Britain, where GP visits are free and women who are given prescriptions for contraceptives can also get them free. In the North, family planning clinics also distribute condoms free, a Department of Health spokeswoman in the North confirmed.
Crisis Pregnancy Agency director Caroline Spillane said the agency was concerned that the cost of contraception was particularly affecting people on low incomes who were not eligible for full medical cards. She said that apart from the VAT, condoms were relatively expensive in the Republic.
The agency, in drawing up proposals for the Departments of Health and Finance, would look at the numbers likely to be affected if the cost was reduced and the benefits to be gained.
She said that a "significant proportion of the population" - some 10 per cent - engage in unprotected sex even though they do not want to conceive.
The strategy document also pointed out that it had been found that 30 per cent of men and women who had just met their partner or who had no steady relationship with them did not use a condom on the last occasion they had sex.
Ms Spillane said the cost of contraception was important for particular groups. On the issue of contraceptive use, the agency has identified three "at-risk groups" - those aged 18-24, people who are economically and educationally disadvantaged, and women aged 35-55.
Ms Spillane said women over 35 were being targeted because this was the only group where the abortion rate was increasing.
"There is an issue going on there with their knowledge about their own levels of fertility and their perception of risk around crisis pregnancy," she said.
In launching the strategy, Ms Harney praised the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, saying it was "incredible the amount that has been achieved in such a short time", since it was set up in 2001.
Ms Harney said there were "measurable achievements" because the number of women travelling to Britain for an abortion had fallen from 7.5 per 1,000 to six per 1,000 women; the number of teenagers going for an abortion had fallen similarly; and the number of teenage pregnancies overall had declined from 3,100 to 2,300.
Ms Spillane said that since 2001 there was a "gradual downward trend" in the numbers travelling for abortions. The agency had approached abortion clinics in various countries and the only country women were travelling to in any significant numbers was Holland and this trend had only started in 2006.
The majority still went to Britain, she said. Detailed figures on the numbers who went to other EU states would be available before the end of the year, she said.
Meanwhile, Ms Harney said she fully supported the HSE decision to send smear tests to the US for analysis because women had been waiting six months for results and this was unacceptable. She said they had been sent to quality-assured laboratories in the US and it was her first priority to ensure patients got results quickly.