Health Minister James Reilly has said that the HSE is to review a website partly-funded by the state that gives 
young people information about group sex.
The move comes amid reports that the site, SpunOut.ie, carries information which appears to encourage teenagers to participate in “threesomes”.
However the website has insisted that it will retain the relevant section, despite the furore, the Irish Independent reports.
Mr Reilly said yesterday: “I’ve been on to the HSE this morning about this and they are aware of the problem and they are going to review it.”
The group gets €124,000 from the HSE annually – about 30pc of its overall funding.
“I don’t think that’s an appropriate use of public money,” Mr Reilly said.
“From my personal point of view as a doctor as well as a politician I just think this is not the appropriate sort of information that the State should be putting out there,” he added.
SpunOut.ie spokesman Ian Power said that some of the language in the article, including words like “shenanigans” and “spiced up”, was amended over the weekend. But he insisted that they had no intention of making any changes in response to further criticism.
“The substance of the article has not changed, it will not change and it will remain on the website,” he said.
The site said it doesn’t promote threesomes but “arms young people with the facts about them”.
Fine Gael Mayo TD Michelle Mulherin said there was “nothing right” about the website offering advice to users as young as 16 such as: “Threesomes are pretty exciting things. People usually really enjoy them.”
And she questioned the state funding of SpunOut.ie calling on whoever sanctioned the funding to be brought before an Oireachtas Joint Committee to answer questions.
Meanwhile, the Iona Institute has called for the suspension of public funding for the website “because of its radically pro-choice philosophy, its promotion of an extremely permissive approach to sexual behaviour among teenagers, and because of the way in which the role of parents in the lives of their teenage children is almost completely sidelined by the site”.
In a statement, Breda O’Brien said: “Does Health Minister James Reilly seriously believe this is a good use of public money? Can he seriously justify continuing to fund a website which tell teenagers that ‘threesomes’ are ‘fun’?”
She continued: “Minister Reilly must also justify the provision of State money to a website which, in its section on abortion makes no mention whatever of the rights of the unborn child and seems to have no issue at all with what can only be called ‘social abortions’.
She added: “There is a marked difference between advice given about social smoking, and the advice on sexual behaviour. The website is very directive about not smoking, but suggests that reasons for having a threesome include the fact that they are ‘pretty exciting’ and ‘people usually enjoy them.’ ”
Ms O’Brien added: “The attitude of this website stands in marked contrast to another State-funded website, B4Udecide.ie, which advises teenagers to delay having sex until they are older.
Breda O’Brien continued: ‘Although there is some useful material, it is not just a case of removing offending pages. There is a very definite worldview underlying the site, which includes little recognition of the role of parents, other than how to negotiate with these somewhat troublesome adults when they don’t agree with your course of action.’
“State funding should be withdrawn from it until it can be shown that the advice given on it is geniunely helpful, in keeping with the wishes of the parents who are paying for this through their taxes, and appropriate for the very young age groups that will access this site. Parents have a right to know that a state funded website aimed at their children is not actively undermining their values.”
Apart from the HSE funding it recieves, SpunOut said it also received €220,000 from Atlantic Philanthropies, a foundation backed by US businessman Chuck Feeney, and smaller donors. The group’s funding is each year reviewed by the HSE and Atlantic Philanthropies.