David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our witnesses. I commend them, their team and all of those involved in the research on their work and thank them for it.

I will start by making one point . A lot of the media attention, and I would argue some of the political attention, has been on the legislative changes, which are important. The operational recommendations that Ms O'Shea makes are equally important. We are five years on from the Act coming into place. It is disappointing that we have the geographical barriers and that there are still issues with access to services for women, which can be dealt with by operational issues through resourcing and through other creative measures that Ms O' Shea recommends in her report. I commend those operational recommendations. I would argue that they should be expedited and delivered as soon as possible. Some of them, such the geospatial mapping that was referred to, should have been done already. I accept and commend those recommendations that arise out of the review.

I have some questions on the legislative changes because it is something the politicians would need to focus on, obviously, as it is our responsibility to legislate. From the witnesses' perspective, is there any medical reason why the three-day wait should remain?