Dr. Yolande Ferguson:

First, Deputy Conway, referring to pathways, asked how long it would take to see me. Obviously, one would not have seen me this morning, but I have left two colleagues who were available for any emergency work. I work for a service that is highly responsive. I see persons where, "As soon as you can get here", is often the response. At weekends and out of hours, we have an on-call service.

I think that is the value of having the psychiatrist who is responsible for the patient's care being the person who does the certification. It allows that normalisation of the process. It is naturalistic. It is not her seeing some random psychiatrist whom she has never seen before and will never see again.

The criminalisation is a concern. The reality is there are many young women in Ireland who are buying their medication over the Internet and taking it at home, or whose parents are buying it and giving it to their children. It is rather distressing to think that these young women could be criminalised.

I suppose we, as professionals, have some anxiety about that aspect of the Bill. The chilling effect has not gone away and one worries that there could be potentially a case taken against one.

Deputy Fitzpatrick's issues generally tended to revolve around women and children who were suicidal but had no mental illness, and I think these are probably many of the women and children who will be addressed by this legislation. Assessment of suicide risk is complex. We approach a woman, not only as a person presenting who is (a) pregnant and (b) suicidal, but in a holistic manner. One looks at what are her circumstances, what is going on for her and what are her options. One explores all of that. One takes that time. We are part of teams and, often, the other team members become involved. At that point, if the only option that she can see is that if she does not have this she will die from suicide, then that is the answer to that question but one arrives at that after much discussion and consideration.

I apologise for not getting the name of the final questioner as I was too busy writing notes.