Dr. Clíona Murphy:

Our members have visited Scotland and a number of other countries. We are all working on estimates. If one takes Ireland, we estimate that approximately 4,000 women travel and perhaps another 1,000 have used medical methods, however, there is probably an unmet need, so from a geographic perspective 11,000 fits all right. A lot of people have the idea that we may be looking at 10,000 and the question is whether we will have 10,000 immediately or over a number of years. Anything next year is going to be an increase on what we have had before in this country so we have to understand that. There probably will be a plateauing and perhaps a decrease if we increase contraceptive methods and advice, as outlined by Dr. Boylan. With regard to the numbers then requiring, for example, hospital intervention, in Oslo in Norway, for example, they have 2,000 terminations per annum, 1,600 are medical and the rest are surgical so they would have 20% requiring hospital admissions. If we have 10,000 we have to think about 20% needing hospitals. We may not have 10,000, it could be 7,000 or 8,000 but they are all guesstimates to the best of our ability.