The Catholic Bishops of Ireland have reiterated their concern about Catholic hospitals being potentially forced to carry out terminations under the Protection of Life During Pregnancy legislation.

They say this is regardless of the fact that under the Bill, most terminations would be carried out in maternity units, none of which are specifically 'Catholic' institutions.

A spokesman for the Catholic Bishops told irishhealth.com that while the heads of bill published to date refer to obstetric units carrying out terminations under normal circumstances, it also provides for terminations to be carried out in locations other than maternity units in emergency situations.

The spokesman said terminations in emergency situations could be carried out in any hospital location, and this could include Catholic hospitals. He also stressed that what had been published to date was the heads of a bill, and further details of the legislation were awaited.

The heads of bill state that doctors should not be prevented from saving a woman's life in a situation of acute emergency, in which cases the reasonable opinion of only one doctor would be needed to certify that the termination would be immediately necessary.

The heads of bill state that emergency terminations can be carried out in locations other than public maternity units.

However, in the vast majority of cases, the proposed legislation indicates that terminations would be carried out in one of the 19 maternity units in the country, 16 of which are HSE-run, the remainder being the three Dublin voluntary maternity hospitals.

Of these two, the Coombe and the Rotunda are not Catholic hospitals, and Holles Street is only a Catholic Hospital in titular sense.

The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin is still Chairman of Holles Street's board of governors, an arrangement dating back to the early years of the 20th century. Three local parish priests are also on the board.

However, the Catholic Church has had no active role in the running or policy direction of Holles Street in recent times and the current Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has not attended board meetings at the hospital for more than eight years and has effectively sought to be removed as chairman.

Of the hospitals which do not have maternity facilities, the two major Catholic institutions in the country would be the Mater and St Vincent's Hospitals in Dublin.

Other Catholic hospitals include Crumlin and Temple Street children's hospitals.

No 'Catholic hospitals' deemed abortion centres