Ms Orla O'Connor:

This is a big issue for our members and for women. For example, there are difficulties in rural areas in just being able to get to services physically because of public transport, the small number of providers, finding out who is providing abortion care and having to make those journeys at a stressful and challenging time. There are also compounded issues for particular groups of women.

That is why the abortion working group has highlighted that all the things we and the IFPA are talking about today concerning barriers are made much more difficult, for example, for a disabled woman trying to access a service. It is made much harder for different groups of women, such as women experiencing domestic violence. These barriers to access make it much harder for those groups of people and we wish to highlight this aspect to the committee today. As was pointed out, even the data we have, because they are in ranges of zero to ten - we do not have actual figures - means we are talking about people who must travel long distances to be able to access services and, as I said, find out where those services are. That is not acceptable for what is not only a key and essential healthcare service, but also one that must be provided in a timely fashion because of its nature.