Ms Marie O'Shea:

That is really the one issue. When it comes to conscientious objection, nobody, including myself, would want to deny somebody the right to exercise that right. It would be psychologically unsafe to insist that somebody whose values are against provision of abortion should have to go in and, save in emergency situations, perform an abortion. If one is of a religious persuasion or otherwise, that is not a fair thing to ask anyone to do. We have a situation which we know, and the Government policy is to increase the number of hospitals which are providing termination of pregnancy services. We know that the response of the HSE to that is to recruit consultants. However, we also know that in the recruitment process in the past, there were two known cases where the persons who were recruited then declared themselves to be conscientiously objecting to the provision of abortion. Regarding those two recruits, it might well be that they were never asked.

In recent times, the HSE is including in the job specification that termination of pregnancy services are part of the remit. However, it is still very unclear to employers. What I am hearing from the HSE is that when it is looking face-to-face at the candidate, it is unsure as to whether it can ask them, "Are you comfortable with providing termination of pregnancy services?" That is because of the provisions in the Employment Equality Act 1998 about discrimination. There is nothing to say that even if one said at the interview that one felt comfortable and the employer genuinely believed that one did, one would go in and then discover "well, I actually cannot do this.". If an employer can ask the question, and make the requisite inquiries, then it lessens the chances of recruiting somebody who has a conscientious objection. There has to be something in the legislation or ministerial guidelines which would make that clear to employers.