Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome our guests today but express my deep dismay that the Minister is not staying with us. We were informed only yesterday by e-mail at 4.30 p.m. It is typical of the way this has been handled and I am very disappointed. In the absence of the Minister, can our guests provide specific examples indicating how the heads of the Bill were influenced by the evidence presented at this committee during the hearings held last January, especially regarding the unanimous evidence presented at these hearings clearly indicating that abortion is not a treatment for suicidal ideation and that it is impossible to determine that a person is suicidal?

As the Minister has left, this may be very unfair, but we have to ask the following question. I heard the Minister interviewed on the radio recently and he indicated that a child who survived a termination and whose mother did not want to parent the child, him or her, that this child will be put into State care. Yet the heads of the Bill which we are discussing here today make no provision for this eventuality whatsoever. Why?