Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the job you are doing, a Chathaoirligh. One thing is clear to me having been present at the hearings for two days. The obstetricians are in agreement about the obstetrics, they are in disagreement with the psychiatry, and the psychiatrists are completely split. That tells its own story.

If I understand the situation correctly, and the witnesses might clarify if I am wrong, the one in 500,000 refers to women who commit suicide in pregnancy, and that is associated with mental illness. If I understand it correctly, it would be impossible to find that one person in the 500,000 and abortion would not be a treatment anyway. Therefore, what we are talking about is finding the cohort of women who say they will commit suicide and whom the earlier group of psychiatrists said must be believed. We all understand why that is important, but it seems they are not in the realm of medicine anymore and that they are really in the realm of certification, which might explain why Dr. Peadar O’Grady said this should not necessarily involve doctors at all. Is that the problem here, that to catch the cohort we are talking about, it is not a medical decision the psychiatrists are being asked to make? Is that the essence of their concern, that it is a question of some kind of intelligent guesswork they cannot do because they do not have the ability to predict who might or who might not? Do I understand the situation correctly?