Alan Shatter
Question:192 Mr. Shatter asked the Minister for Health the moneys that have been allocated by his Department in each of the last ten years by way of grants for research purposes into natural methods of family planning.
Written Answers. - Family Planning Research Funding.
The Health Research Board provided a total of £237,000 for a female fertility research unit in University College Galway in respect of a project — completion date 31/12/90. The objectives of the project which was conducted between 1986 and 1990 were (a) to develop rapid, cost effective, non-isotopic methods for measuring reproductive steroid hormones in saliva and (b) to evaluate the clinical applications of those assays in natural family planning, the management of female infertility, the return of postpartum fertility, habitual abortion and in post-menopausal women undergoing hormone replacement therapy. The final report of the project is expected to be published next month and I will arrange to let the Deputy have a copy of this report. In the meantime, I am sending him a copy of the annual report of the HRB for 1990 in which the main achievements of the study are summarised.