She said that given her ideal world did not exist she would quite happily have somebody standing on every street corner in Tayside handing out condoms to “all and sundry” to protect them from the consequences of sexual activity.

“I would like to get to the world as visualised by Bishop Logan, but we have to keep young people safe and have to promote their health and well-being in the meantime. Nothing is going to change overnight.”

She recognised that for some people the sexual health strategy would be “absolute anathema” because they didn’t want to think of their children being involved in sexual activity.

“But they do and we must do what we can” she said.

The comments were made at today’s meeting of the NHS Tayside full board.

At the meeting, Tayside Health bosses backed plans to widen access to sexual health and information and treatment services.

Chairman Peter Bates stressed the sexual health strategy was about promoting health and not about promoting sex.

However, in comments to the board ahead of today’s meeting, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dunkeld said the plans would leave parents feeling “betrayed” and that the approach to health education in the document was “defective”.

In the comments, Mgr Joseph Creegan said, on behalf of Bishop Vincent Logan, “If the aim was to promote a campaign to say ‘no’ to sex at a young age, it might win some credibility.

“As it stands it gives the impression that as long as the climate is open and positive, it is OK for young people of, say 12 or 13, to engage in sex as long as they have respect for one another and take suitable precautions.”

The comments continued, “NHS Tayside should support parents by making it clear that there is an age at which young people should definitely not engage in sex.

“Although one of the aims of the strategy is to support parents, we feel they will feel betrayed by the proposals.

“We aim to educate for abstinence from smoking and taking drugs. In the case of alcohol, there is a set age at which it can be legally consumed; below that age, society says ‘no alcohol’.

“The failure to address sexual behaviour in the same way indicates an approach to health education which is defective educationally, quite apart from other values.”

The meeting, at the King’s Cross headquarters in Dundee, heard that 900 individual responses were gathered following the publication previously of the draft strategy.

These responses were overwhelmingly supportive for the measures that will target young people and attempt to reduce the region’s unenviable record on teenage pregnancies and high rates of sexually transmitted infections.

Several members of the board said they did not think the organisations’ approach to sexual health and the position of the Catholic Church were “mutually exclusive”.

Dr Drew Walker, NHS Tayside’s Director of Public Health, acknowledged sexual health and the strategy before the board was hugely important and “inevitably contentious” subject.

“It is really important we both listen and respect the views of the very diverse range of groups and diverse views of these groups in taking this strategy forward,” he said.

“What the strategy proposes has the same aims as other approaches, of increasing the age of first intercourse, reducing the number of sexual partners and emphasising sex should be part of a healthy loving relationship and empowering young people to resist pressures to have sex when that is not necessarily what they want.

“The strategy also recognises that despite every effort some people will continue to put themselves and others at risk so the strategy proposes a range of services designed to protect people, particularly young people, from the adverse consequences from unhealthy choices.”