Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests and thank them for the frankness and honesty of their approach. I will ask them a question I asked earlier. The X case judgment stated that abortion could be the only way of treating suicidal ideation. Is there psychiatric evidence for what that judgment presupposed, namely, that abortion is a form of necessary mental health treatment? The heads of the Bill also provide for abortion where it is the only way of avoiding a real and substantial threat that a pregnant woman will commit suicide. Are the guests aware of any in-depth studies that indicate that abortion can be the only way of avoiding the real and substantial threat of a pregnant woman's committing suicide or even that abortion can be a form of genuine mental health treatment? I think the guests have already made their position on this clear.

Unlike Deputy Ó Caoláin, I do not have the confidence that he expressed in the hearings that took place in January. The guests might expand on their view that the Government has ignored the evidence presented here last January. They believe there is clarity on the position already in the guidelines and that the guidelines would have sufficed.