Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegation. I want to put on record that I dispute the points made by the previous questioner. There has been a range of concerns that many of us have had for several years about this entire project. It would be interesting just to get some figures on the earlier claim. Perhaps they could be provided to us in relation to the provision of termination services. My understanding is that those services are not provided in St. Vincent's in line with the 2018 Act. If the situation is different to my understanding of it, perhaps we could be provided with figures in that regard. I am not looking for personal details, only figures.

I go back to comments the Minister made in a earlier reply about the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday of last week. He said the decision was taken to open up the issue prior to the Cabinet meeting. That is hard to understand because I recall very clearly the Taoiseach, on his way into that Cabinet meeting, saying to the media that he was entirely satisfied with the proposals and had no concerns whatsoever. Indeed, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, made a similar comment prior to the meeting. At any rate, for one reason or another, the decision was taken to open this up. Would the Minister accept that it would have been a better way of handling this matter to make the legal documents and all other relevant documents available so that people had adequate time to consider them, rather than trying to rush it through without those documents being available?