Dr. John O'Brien:

On that, it relates to the Deputy's capacity question. There are three groups of GPs. There are those who are enthusiastically keen to provide this service within their own practices, there is the group who would be conscientious objectors who would not wish to be involved and then there is probably a larger group in the middle of people who are approving of the idea of the provision of this service, but because of capacity constraints within their own practices, will not feel that they are able to do it. The Deputy will be aware that 60% of practices are now closed to new patients. He will also be aware that there is a demographic cliff in general practice in that the National Doctors Training and Planning, NDTP, which is the HSE unit for planning, estimates that we will be down 700 GPs in seven years so there are major problems. GPs will also be looking quite critically at what the Deputy spoke about in terms of the infrastructure that surrounds them and the care pathways that will flow from general practice because they do not want to be in a position where they have embarked on a process with a woman and that they are not carrying that to an expeditious completion because of bottlenecks in the system, waiting times for ultrasound or waiting times for consultant provision. All the while the clock is ticking and there is the question of who would be legally responsible if the woman's pregnancy goes beyond 12 weeks and she is no longer eligible. There are a lot of concerns within general practice around this.