teaching? The reply, as you all know, was that it is contrary to Catholic social teaching. I was not aware — the Taoiseach can verify this — until I had asked each member of the Cabinet separately what he proposed to do, what he had been given to understand by Dr. McQuaid when that decision was taken. He then told us that that morning he had been informed by Dr. McQuaid that Catholic social teaching and Catholic moral teaching were one and the same thing. Aftermath The following month a general election was called and in June 1951 a new government was formed as a result. A derivative of the scheme was implemented subsequently by the Fianna Fáil government which returned to power as a result of the general election. This achieved legislative effect in the 1953 Health Act; this and later legislation that created the Voluntary Health Insurance Board in 1957. Although a single-payer system emerged in Ireland, the 1957 Act ended immediate attempts to implement a National Health Service-style healthcare model. Thus the private and public systems existing side-by-side, later reinforced by the 1970 Health Act, which changed healthcare from the responsibility of the county to a smaller number of regional health boards. The transfer of responsibility from local authority to state led to the introduction of the Unmarried Mother's Allowance in 1973, the first direct State payment to assist an unmarried woman to rear her child in the community. References Sources Citations External links Mother and Child Scheme Controversy History Hub, University College Dublin 1950s - Mother and Child Scheme Oireachtas Library & Research Service Health in the Republic of Ireland 1951 in Irish politics 13th Dáil Medical controversies in the Republic of Ireland Catholic social teaching