Dr. Berry Kiely:

The question of whether it is an insult to women is something that has arisen here. I will be utterly honest about it. Emotive language does not help in this. Committee members need to have a clear head in dealing with this. If the committee does what is just and fair, that will not be insult to anybody. If it takes into account the rights of everybody involved, things will be said about the committee and thrown at it, but at the end of the day the important matter is that we do what is just and what is fair. I would leave the emotive language out of it.

As far as I am aware, there is no disparity of views about what is needed to be done for any woman who is ill during her pregnancy, and I think the committee would be of the same opinion. Everybody is agreed on that. The difficulty with which the Oireachtas is faced is that it is being asked to legislate for more than that. That is where there is a disparity of views. As far as I am aware, there is no disparity of views from any of the presentations the committee has received that abortion is not a remedy for suicide and that, furthermore, abortion is associated with an increased risk of suicide.

All I can say about the comment on the Supreme Court is, as far as I am aware, it is not considered to be infallible. It is the best we have at any given moment, but if we find - it is 20 years ago - the Supreme Court did not hear the evidence the committee has been hearing for the past two days, I suspect if it had it would have reached a very different conclusion. There is no getting away from the fact that it is time to revisit that Supreme Court decision, much and all as none of us likes to think in terms of a referendum. I would like to hand over to Ms Simons.