Ms Marie O'Shea:

The Irish Family Planning Association collected data in 2001 on 500 people who presented to it. Of the 500, I think there were 470 people who, being within the 12 weeks, were eligible to access termination-of-pregnancy services, to be provided by the association alone. More than 97% returned and completed the process, and the other 2.5%, say, did not. That is consistent with data collected in an earlier study, back in 2019. That study accounted for roughly 400 people who had presented to a GP for early termination of pregnancy. Again, in the region of 2% did not return. I have heard Professor Fergal Malone state it may be partly due to the fact that some people might have had a spontaneous miscarriage, which would not be unusual. However, the truth is that we simply do not know. We know that some of the patients would definitely have been referred to hospitals. It is likely that there are people who changed their minds. I do not necessarily know that having a mandatory three-day waiting period would have influenced this. That is really the honest answer.