A Government Minister has attacked a Catholic parish for explaining Catholic teaching on IVF to other Catholics.

Minister for Health, Simon Harris, was responding to a Catholic parish in Tullamore who posted on social media the Church’s opposition to IVF.

Mr Harris described the comments as “extremely hurtful”.

He continued: “I thought and certainly hoped we had moved to a point as a country that this sort of inappropriate interference in decisions that individuals and couples make about their own lives would be left to them”.