Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for attending and for their very interesting presentation, which brought to light something I had not realised, namely, that the number of Irish women having abortions in the Netherlands is very small. There has been a narrative in this country that while 3,000 to 3,500 Irish women go to Britain for abortions, we are often reminded that there are more going to the Netherlands and so forth. I had not realised the number is so small and does not, to any significant degree, impact on Irish abortion rates abroad.

I will start by asking about the Dutch abortion figures. The Netherlands is presented as a country that has very low abortion rates. However, from what I can see, it is more accurate to say that Britain, France and other such countries are in the highest tier and that the abortion rates in the Netherlands more resemble those of Italy and Portugal, in that it is in a second tier of abortion rates. The figures presented to the Citizens' Assembly, using the UN approach, put the Dutch rate at 9.7 per 1,000, which would be more than twice the Irish rate of 4.5 per 1,000.

However, the British Office for National Statistics calculates abortions as a percentage of total pregnancies. Do the witnesses ever use that approach to avoid things that may change from country to country, such as fertility rates? If one looks at the rate of abortions out of total pregnancies, taking out the 4,000 German and French abortions, it was at 27,000 in 2015 out of the total of 170,000 pregnancies, so the Netherlands seems to have a rate of 13% or 14% whereas in Ireland, we have one in 20, a rate of 5%. Before we examine the Dutch figures, is the third category which is not included in them, the early abortions, included in the figures the witnesses are giving us?