Dr. Tony Holohan:

I cannot see how it could practically occur that one could propose the procurement of a termination on a woman’s behalf without consultation with the individual woman.

The time limit is in the legislation. There is a seven-day period for the Health Service Executive, HSE, to convene and a seven-day period within which it must actually make that assessment.

The length of time for the assessment will be dictated by the clinical circumstances. There may well be a situation of someone expressing suicidal ideation or indeed something arises from physical health point of view where time is much more of an issue than in other situations. One can have a real and substantial risk to life that need not be imminent in a physical health situation. The time period that should elapse will vary on clinical grounds and, therefore, should be the subject of the clinical guidance that needs to be developed by doctors that I spoke about in my opening statement.

It is not proposed that this legislation and the heads approved by the Government would cover the question of foetal abnormality. That is not to say that we at a personal level have enormous sympathy for women who find themselves in that situation.