Ms Ailbhe Smyth:

We have abortion in this country. It is just happens elsewhere, as countless other contributors have pointed out. It happens off-site where we cannot see it and do not have to deal with it but we do have an abortion rate in this country. I see no reason to think that this would rise, if at all, with the introduction of appropriate, comprehensive legislation on abortion in this country. Do we have statistics? We have very few. We have some witness accounts but we do not have the statistics precisely because this data is not collected in this country as technically these abortions do not happen in this country even though they are abortions performed on and requested by women from this country.