Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There has to have been a way around this. There is a departmental budget of €24 billion and surely to God this is something so important to the health of the women of Ireland that a way around this should have been found. Perhaps the problem is the Department is completely knotted up in legality and it is possible this is why it is not achieving what it would like to. I am not going to change the Minister's mind and clearly the rest of committee will not do so either. The Minister should come before us again next week after we have the opportunity to study the terms of reference and have a proper and meaningful engagement. Unfortunately, the committee's work has been taken up significantly with this matter and the appointment of a chair. That should not be the case. It is not what the committee is about. It is very poor that we did not have the terms of reference at least 24 hours or 48 hours in advance in order to study them. I accept the Minister's apology but it is again indicative of the Department and the manner in which it engages with this committee.

I have major concerns about the roll-out of the services, particularly in rural Ireland, where people do not have the opportunity to travel or it is not easy or comfortable for them to travel to Dublin. There are parts of rural Ireland where services are not being provided to the degree they should. There is a serious urban-rural divide in the provision of termination services.

Will the Minister give his view on where he sees major gaps? We will feed into the process when it is established but I would like the Minister's view on where he sees gaps in services now.