Ms Ailbhe Smyth:

The best way to ensure there would be no back-street abortions and that there would be sanctions against those who try to provide such services would be to legislate for safe abortion services in this country. At the end of the day, that is the reasonable answer to Deputy Kelleher's question and it is important we keep on making this point. We have been saved to an extent from the excesses of the problems of back-street abortions by having the escape route to Britain for at least those women who could afford it. We cannot, however, and should not in all honesty as a society continue to do this. This is a shameful exercise we are embarked upon so we must legislate for safe, legal abortion in Ireland.

We certainly must decriminalise the doctors who are in the situation they have described to members in some detail in the past few days and those women who, sadly, could also find themselves criminalised.

I will make a brief comment on suicide which, as Ms Orla O'Connor has said, is specified in and is the heart of the Supreme Court ruling in the case of X. It is very important to underline yet again that Supreme Court rulings cannot be overturned on the basis of a change in view or attitude or on a whim. Furthermore, Supreme Court rulings are not à la cartemenus where legislators and people can choose this bit or the other and say that we do not like this but we will take that. A Supreme Court ruling is a Supreme Court ruling and unless we are prepared to put in question the entire structure of the making of law and of order in this country we must respect and honour our Supreme Court rulings and the members of the Supreme Court who make those rulings.

With regard to online medication, my answer would be very similar to that which I made to the legislative question. Safe, legal abortion and properly supervised good care services is what enables women not to have recourse to these perilous measures of seeking to self-medicate across the Internet with no guarantee, no regulation and very little obvious recourse if a difficulty arises.

In terms of the many questions that arise, it is as if we are saying that given that we cannot have legislation that would address the needs of women and the problem we are confronting, what can we do to get around it? What are the little dodges that we can have to get around these problems? The problem has been staring us in the face for 30 years, and I have some sympathy with Deputy Kelleher who said there are parameters to this committee and that there has been some repetition. There has been repetition for the past 30 years. Every decade a dramatic event, incident, problem or case has come up again and each time we try to push it under the carpet. For the first time there is an opportunity in this country to be direct, honest and to firmly grasp this particular nettle, which happens to be the lives and the health of women of child-bearing age in this country, and say we will do what requires to be done to meet those needs and to meet our obligations as a society which cares about its citizens.