Dr. Gerard Burke:

My colleagues have dealt with a lot of the issues. I will again refer to the substantial risk and what its size may be. A figure of 10% was mentioned as the smallest one. If, over the next six months, 166 Deputies and 60 Senators were told that 10% of them, or 20 Deputies and Senators, would be dead by the end of that period, nobody would be in this House today. If we reduced the risk to 1%, two Deputies or Senators would be gone. I do not know which two it would be. That is the ridiculousness of trying to put a number and percentage on risk.

We do not know the numbers. When a complex patient comes along one cannot go to the medical literature and figure out the woman's exact percentage risk of dying if she is still pregnant next month or the month after. We simply do not know. The only way to deal with this is to say that the matter is for the opinion of the medical experts. I request that Deputies write that statement into the Bill, namely, that it is a matter for medical experts and the guidelines of committees that will oversee the legislation at hospital level.

In regard to the number of maternal deaths, infection is a particular factor that creeps up on one out of the blue. One does not see it coming. A patient who has ruptured membranes could be very well one day and have very mild signs of infection but could be extremely ill 24 or 48 hours later. My understanding is that there was a significant rise in the number of maternal deaths in Ireland last year. We have a low base, but it is possibly only a statistical chance. We would not be able to say there was a trend unless we had seen the figures for three years or so.

I agree with Senator Walsh that we should have much better data collection nationally on every aspect of medical care, not just this. It should be done so that everybody is clear what the effects of the interventions are; about that there is no doubt.

I answered Deputy Kelleher. I have never referred anybody to England for a termination.

The question of appropriate locations was again raised. There is a strong view from all of us that it should include general hospitals. I also agree that psychiatric illness should be treated in the Bill in the same manner as cardiac or respiratory disease. It is a real illness and carries substantial mortality. It needs a multidisciplinary approach, the same as one would get if one had a heart problem.