Dr. Caitriona Henchion:

I will take the last question first. Thankfully, we do not have any evidence of back-street surgical abortions. In response to the second one about what women have to go through to ask for a hysterectomy, first, it would not be an appropriate operation for fertility control. There would be surgical sterilisation operations available to women where the tubes are tied or ligatured. That is available but logistically it is not very practical because it takes probably over a year for a routine gynaecological appointment to come to the top of the list. Then, having been seen, the woman may be rejected on the grounds of not enough children, too young or various matters like that. The woman is then put on a second waiting list - to actually get the procedure done - if that is deemed to be suitable. There are women who want a permanent method and do not want to have to keep on renewing contraceptive methods. I would always say that I refer them but they need to do something else now because they will be waiting two to three years for that to become a reality.