Mr. Muiris O'Connor:

I thank the Deputy. He has offered a very good summary of the key takeaways for us from this session. They correspond exactly with the messages we are taking away. As the Deputy said, it is absolutely reasonable to anticipate some legal challenge to legislation such as this. It is recognised that protecting the rights of service users must be balanced against protecting the rights of those engaged in legitimate protest. Article 46(1) of the Constitution protects legitimate protest, as does Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights on freedom of expression, and Article 11 on freedom of assembly and association. We are very conscious of those rights but we are conscious that those rights are not absolute. We are committed to providing for the safety, privacy and dignity of service users in respect of termination of pregnancy services, and of staff on a more general basis.