Mother and Child controversy

Mother and Child controversy. In 1950–1 Noel Browne, minister for health in the interparty government, drew up proposals for free medical care for mothers and children under 16. Although Browne apparently believed that he had secured the acquiescence of the Catholic bishops, they denounced the scheme as contrary to the Catholic principle of subsidiary function, i.e. that the state should not intervene in cases where a lower organization, in this case the family, could provide what was needed. John A. Costello, as taoiseach, and Sean MacBride, as Browne's party leader, joined in forcing Browne's resignation. Their action, accompanied by extravagant declarations of their obedience to church teaching, enshrined the episode as a demonstration of the political power of the Catholic church in independent Ireland. But it is also suggested that the bishops were themselves manipulated by the powerful Irish Medical Association, whose members were reluctant to lose feepaying patients to a state service. In 1953 Browne's Fianna Fáil successor, James Ryan, successfully introduced a broadly similar scheme, but excluding the 15 per cent of families in the highest income bracket.