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

I would see a role for community pharmacists here because they are the people who generally sell the folic acid and pregnancy tests and who also dispense medication to patients with long-term illnesses. They are very much aware of patients' history and in well-established community pharmacies, they would have seen girls growing up and going through different phases of treatment.

While I am in favour of specialist nurses, I am of the view that there is a role for community pharmacists here in terms of explaining the science. What is commonly lost in the chat about valproate is the issue of balance, as just described by Dr. Henry. The risk to the woman and to the pregnancy of abruptly stopping medication must be weighed up. If a woman with an unplanned pregnancy who is on valproate turns up at a doctor's surgery, she should be told that just stopping is not the solution. That point is often lost in the argument.

On the RCOG report, Deputy Kelly stated that he is not filled with encouragement. I am of the opposite view, particularly having met representatives from RCOG. I felt that they were full of integrity and that their independence was guaranteed. Perhaps their answers are not the answers that some of us wanted to hear but the answers we got in the private briefing last week gave me some solace. I now feel that the future might be better. There have been constant calls for a reopening of the audit process. To my mind, this all went wrong with the audit. Somebody decided to conduct an audit without considering how to deal with the results and with the fact that real people were involved, either deceased women's families or women who had adverse outcomes. Consideration was not given to the results, the impact of same or the issue of open disclosure, and all of that fed into this crisis for people. It is important that there is some balance here. While I was not necessarily filled with encouragement, I felt confident that the RCOG representatives were independent and were not in the pocket of anyone, as has been suggested.