June 2004 A response from the NEC seeks to assure the volunteers that Bishop Fleming is formulating a response to the matter, to be communicated to all centres in due course. October 2004 With no sign of the bishops' response, the volunteers raise the matter with the National Co-ordinator and Regional Co-ordinator during a visit to Letterkenny and are assured that a response will come from the NEC.
January 2005 A directive is issued that Positive Options is to remain available in all Cura centres.
May 2005 The volunteers write to The Irish Catholic outlining their concerns with Positive Options. A meeting is held with Bishop Boyce of Raphoe, who informs the volunteers the issue of Positive Options is to be discussed at the Irish Bishops' Conference in June.
May 19 2005 Cura's NEC writes to the volunteers asking them to meet regarding their actions. The volunteers respond that they will not meet, but await the outcome of the Bishops' Conference.
Following this, an undated letter from the NEC informs the volunteers they have been dismissed from Cura. It is subsequently discovered that the locks of the Cura office in Letterkenny have been changed.
June13-15 2005 The Irish bishops meet at Maynooth and discuss Positive Options, deciding that the leaflet is ''unacceptable'' in its current form, and calling for its withdrawal from Cura centres nationwide.
June 16 2005 The bishops' decision is conveyed at a press conference at Maynooth, at which Bishop Fleming defends the Positive Options leaflet and refuses to be drawn on whether the Letterkenny volunteers will be reinstated.
February 23, 2007 The four women suspended from Cura are barred from the agency's annual conference, despite the fact that the women's objections were supported by the hierarchy 18 months previously. At the same conference, Bishop Fleming assures The Irish Catholic that the dialogue with the women is ongoing.
October 11, 2007 In an interview with The Irish Catholic, the Cura volunteers say that they ''have lost all hope'' of being reinstated.
February 23, 2008 Bishop John Fleming, President of Cura, assures delegates at the Cura national conference that the NEC was making ''every effort possible to bring to final resolution all the issues which have arisen in recent years'' in reference to the Letterkenny debacle.
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(Source: IC)