Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have only heard of it described as twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome before. Mr. Thompson is dedicated to saving life and we are having conversations here about term limits, gestational stages, survival rates and all of that. I am concerned that we are trying to frame our work into a preconceived diagram and, at this stage, there is no need for that. We should trust experts in their field, such as Mr. Thompson, to progress their education and progress medicine. I am starting to think we should just let the doctors, the experts, deal with this.

Has Mr. Thompson ever encountered a person in the UK who has been compelled or forced against her will to terminate a pregnancy? There is almost a narrative here - this is obviously non-evidence based from what I can see - that doctors might be encouraging people to terminate. However, based on Mr. Thompson's evidence, it appears that he does a lot of work to counsel people, advise them on their situation and help them through it. I ask him to speak to that.

I also ask him to speak to the psychological and mental stress on families - mothers, fathers and other children - that can arise from a diagnosis of foetal abnormality, usually fatal. Does he have any figures for marital breakdown as a result of such a catastrophic diagnosis? The previous speakers mentioned this and I have spoken about it previously. With advances in medicine, children are surviving from just over 24 weeks, which would have been unheard of a decade ago. I support my colleagues in that we have to be very careful about putting in parameters, particularly when medicine is advancing so quickly and when children who would not have survived ten years ago might survive in the future.

As Deputy O'Reilly said, the 20-week scan is not available outside of the Dublin hospitals. Professor Louise Kenny from Cork addressed the Joint Committee on Health on this matter. Mr. Thompson spoke about diabetic women and other women with congenital defects themselves. We are missing one per week in Ireland where it is the wild card. It is the 20-year old who has a child with whatever condition. Clearly, we have issues in this country with 20-week scans. I do not want to misquote Professor Kenny, but I think her words were that one child a week is being born in circumstances that are not ideal and that these children should obviously be delivered in our teaching hospitals. I ask Mr. Thompson to address those points.