The Domiciliary Birth Group was set up following a Supreme Court ruling in 2003 which found that there was no statutory obligation on health boards to provide home birth services.
The court dismissed appeals by four women against the refusal by the Southwest Area Health Board and the East Coast Area Health Board to provide them directly or indirectly with home birth services.
While Section 62 of the Health Act 1970 required health boards to make available appropriate medical, surgical and midwifery services, that obligation would be fully complied with by providing those services in a hospital, the court found.
The women had claimed that the boards' failure to provide home birth services to them, whether directly or through defraying all or part of the costs of securing the services of an independent domiciliary midwife, breached the boards' obligations under Section 62.
The court also dismissed a claim that it was discriminatory for the East Coast Area Health Board not to provide home midwifery services of a kind that other health boards did provide.
Another court challenge, which was seen as a threat to the future of home birth services in Ireland, was the case of domiciliary midwife Ann Kelly.
She was suspended from practising as a domiciliary midwife by an injunction brought in the High Court by An Bord Altranais, the regulatory body for the nursing profession. This followed a complaint against her from the Master of the National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street alleging undue delay in bringing to hospital a mother undergoing a long labour.
Ms Kelly had almost 30 years' nursing experience, much of it as a domiciliary midwife. With the exception of two instances where the foetus suffered from pre-birth deformities, which would have made survival outside the womb impossible, she never lost a baby.
Parents of children whom she had delivered, and other supporters, offered their help and protested outside the High Court during Ms Kelly's numerous attendances.
It took 20 court battles before the injunction against her was lifted and she was free to practise.
