Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms McMahon for the reply. As I said at the outset, I am not an aficionado of this particular type of identification. If the legislation is to work in the way it was intended, then the services should be available through the various channels already identified, as appropriate. We must be able to deal with situations where, in certain circumstances, women may find themselves unable to access a service by one means or another.

The whole question of access to the service is paramount. In the event of an impedance of their right to access the service, then the State is responsible. That relates to my general question on identifying the locations. Hospitals will readily carry out the service, will readily admit they carry it out and are entitled to carry it out. We learned that lesson from the situation that we dealt with previously where women lost their lives as a result of the law not being sufficiently rigorous to ensure they were able to avail of the service.

Another issue is now emerging, which is the possible fear by patients of being seen going to an area that is specifically responsible for providing a particular aspect of services that could or should be available through practitioners in all hospitals. The danger then arises of driving this service underground in every sense of the word. That would be a dangerous development in the whole thing.

I do not want to delay the meeting. I will simply finish off by saying I am raising these questions as one of the three people present who were on the original committee. It was quite clear what we intended to do at the time and it was quite clear what had to be done at the time. As a result of that we are now looking at how the system has bedded down, whether it is working satisfactorily and if not, why it is not working satisfactorily. The witnesses cannot answer those questions any more than we can at this stage but the medical profession can answer those questions adequately. The medical profession must answer those questions because if there is any let-up on what was intended in the original legislation as passed following a referendum, then we would all have a problem.