Minister announces gradual changes to blood donation rules for gay men

Mr Donnelly said that the policy would change in two phases from March.

He tweeted: “We are introducing changes to our deferral policy for blood donation from men who have sex with men (MSM). The changes will be introduced in two phases with the initial phase introduced in late March 2022 and the second phase introduced later in 2022.

“The initial phase will reduce the existing 12 month deferral for MSM to four months. This is a temporary measure while the Irish Blood Transfusion Service introduces new technology, to replace the existing paper health and lifestyle questionnaire (HLQ).

“This is an important step and follows a report to the Irish Blood Transfusion Service Board by an independent advisory group chaired by Professor Mary Horgan. A progressive step that I hope will be widely welcomed.”

Minister @DonnellyStephen has supported lifting the policy of a one-year suspension of gay and bisexual men who donate blood.@Fiona_Kildare have campaigned for this to be lifted and explained here what changes will be made to our blood donation suspension policy pic.twitter.com/gSuKTnL0YT

– Fianna Fáil (@fiannafailparty) December 22, 2021

More than 400 units of blood are being imported into Ireland this week in response to a supply shortage. This marks the second time in 2021 that the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) has imported blood from the UK’s NHS Blood and Transplant unit. Gay men can donate blood in the UK.

IBTS said this week that it urgently needs blood donations to see it through Christmas and beyond, with Storm Barra costing around 300 donations in recent weeks.

The surge in Covid-19 cases has also affected blood donation appointments, with more blood being discharged into hospitals than being collected.

Only 3% of the population are blood donors and about 9% of them are O negative, and IBTS need to collect 3,000 units of blood every week to maintain the national blood supply.