Ms Maeve Taylor:

On Deputy Durkan's point about the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, that was one of the high points of the Oireachtas in recent years. It was an extraordinary process. The attention and detailed listening that happened during that process where Members listened to medical experts, civil society organisations and women who had experiences of being denied abortion care, and assessed and scrutinised international evidence, was impressive and phenomenal. Those of us who followed the citizens' assembly saw the Oireachtas go through a detailed process after that. Anyone who was on that committee should be very proud of the work it did, the report it produced and the result it had, but we cannot ignore what we know now. We have had three years of understanding how the law is operating in practice. The purpose of the review is to look at the operation of the law. The evidence is showing that the law is getting in the way of the good operation of abortion care services that the committee aimed to produce.

There is a responsibility on the Oireachtas to deeply consider the evidence we now have, namely, Irish data, the experience of Irish healthcare providers and international guidance - there is new guidance from the WHO - and to have an ongoing and monitoring review so we are gradually supporting the mainstreaming of abortion care into healthcare and the destigmatisation of reproductive healthcare generally. It is a very important role into the future. The job is not done yet.