Ms Emily Logan:

There were two questions, one in relation to the medical advice available to Amanda Mellet and Siobhán Whelan. My understanding from the public comments made by the Minister for Health at the time was an acceptance that there was not the kind of medical support that should have been provided to either of the women.

I think Deputy Durkan's reference might have been to the preamble of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Looking at the preparatory documents it is very clear that this is a really contentious issue. Any of the international treaties are subject to the vicissitudes of politics, if one likes, and they are a set of minimum standards. In the context of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child such was the debate that it was not included in the main text of the document it was placed in the preamble to enable jurisdictions to ratify the convention but to also accept that different jurisdictions, as Deputy Durkan indicated in his earlier comments, have different regimes.