Dr. Anthony McCarthy:

That is not part of my presentation from today. When I spoke before the Seanad in the sessions that led to the development of that Act, I know people were saying there would be bus loads of such people. I remember being asked if buses of psychiatrists would be coming in from elsewhere or women would be queuing to come to psychiatrists and lie to us or fool us by saying they are suicidal, etc. I put it on the line and said it was ludicrous and it would never happen. In the years since the Act was established, I have seen one woman in Holles Street in that circumstance.

There was the idea that women would somehow invent these stories but the women I see are genuinely distressed, whether they have a termination or keep the baby. It is a genuine and real problem. They are in desperation by the time they come to see somebody like me. There is the phrase, "Sometimes the world is more full of weeping than you can understand", and it might be over my office door because of some of the stories I hear. The idea that pregnant women would come in to see psychiatrists to fool them into thinking they are suicidal is not how it works in the real world. It was somebody's fantasy that this would happen.