Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Grand. There was a discussion earlier, and I cannot remember who asked the question, as to whether a member of the board would ever approach a clinician about his or her decision and the response was categorically, no, that would not happen. Could Mr. Menton envisage a situation where a clinician would approach the board about its decision given the very limited laws we have around abortion? For example, in the case of a fatal foetal abnormality, if an infant can survive more than 28 days outside the womb, the abortion should not be allowed. It would be illegal. The clinician who might carry it out, if he or she thought that infant would not survive more than two months, would be subject to the possibility of prosecution and a jail sentence.

Can Mr. Menton envisage any situation where a clinician might approach the board and that somewhere in the back of all this - particularly with Mr. Menton's appointment given that the nuns trusted him so much - would be a Catholic head that would be saying, "Well what do we do here?"