Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 172 provides for a report on the implementation. If we are to make termination of pregnancy services free - I agree we should and must and I support that being provided for in this section - then we must make all maternity services free at the same time. They are to a large extent, in fairness, but it is not the case across the board. Some drugs that can cost a great deal of money can be prescribed. Sometimes women have to go in and out for intravenous treatment and acute setting services. In some cases the maternity costs to a woman can end up running into the thousands. I hope any cost on the Exchequer of implementing this measure would be limited. Nevertheless, I am keen to see a situation whereby all maternity services are free. It would be perverse otherwise to have termination of pregnancy services entirely free but not pregnancy services entirely free.

There is a second aspect to this that we should grasp as an opportunity. We should make all contraception free as well. For example, some of the longer acting contraceptives are highly effective but can cost hundreds of euro.

There is the morning-after pill. We could, for example, have a situation - that no one would want - whereby the morning-after pill might require a visit to a GP or €50 to get it from a pharmacist but a visit to a GP for an abortion pill would not incur a charge. I am not suggesting those two things are substitutions for each other. Many different opinions on termination of pregnancy have been voiced at this committee. I am going to take a punt and assert that pretty much everybody here would like to see crisis pregnancies reduced-----