Dr. Eamonn Moloney:

In response to Deputy Flanagan's question about women refusing to co-operate with treatment, it is best answered by Deputy Mathews, who says that no one wants the experience of an abortion. I do not think women will come along to deceive a psychiatrist. This is why the role of the GP will be particularly important, knowing the individual and having personal knowledge, with an experience of dealing with people and being able to assess whether someone is telling the truth. We spend our working days talking to people so we have a lot of experience in this and it is cynical to suggest this is what will happen.

Several of the speakers here this afternoon and this morning, particularly by Dr. Anthony McCarthy, have addressed the positive predictive value of 3%, with one in 500,000 suicides in pregnant women. We do not know what the rates of suicide would be among pregnant women if they did not have access to abortion. We cannot make any prediction, be it 3% or 93%. As I said earlier, one cannot ethically and reasonably do those studies to work it out with that degree of accuracy. We can only say what best international practice is, not just in Ireland but throughout the world, and that we have the ability to assess suicide risk and manage that, recommending the available treatments. It is spurious to use such terms to talk about predictive values. These are in populations where people receive treatment. That obviously affects the outcome.

I would not say we are rushing into anything. It is 20 years since the X case and it is about time. I am glad we are now at the point at which where we are legislating on the X case. Deputy Mathews's reference to obstetricians leaving upsets me because it might be due to other factors, such as the rising rates of litigation against obstetricians. I accept we have our own Constitution but we do not live in a bubble. We are part of Europe and a wider global community. If it is the reality that women are leaving Ireland to get terminations in other jurisdictions, it is relevant to mention that.

Many of the other questions were related specifically to Dr. O'Grady's area, so I will let him address them.