Dr. Karena Hanley:

I was asked if there were still barriers to accessing contraception. The barriers have diminished exponentially in the past 20 years and this is probably why the numbers travelling to other jurisdictions have dropped. There are still too many myths out there and too many young women think the contraceptive pill makes them put on weight. Too many rely on emergency contraception. The failure rate for emergency contraception used to be one in 20 but this is improving and there are good initiatives, such as the websitespunout.ie, which does very good health promotion and has lots of information.