Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair for facilitating me. I know he has a tough job to do today and I note that he has not used his own ten minutes. I appreciate him allowing me to speak. I have three areas of interest. These are fatal foetal abnormalities versus anomalies, the three-day wait and safe zones. I want to say this first because I have only five minutes to speak as a non-member of the committee so we might not reach them all.

Although I am not a member of the committee, prior to being elected I campaigned for repeal, I represent the constituency of Dublin Mid-West which voted 73% in favour of the referendum, and I am a young woman, so this is an area of particular interest to me. I thank the witnesses and their teams for all of the work that has gone into this because it is very important research and they are making important recommendations.

I want to be part of reforming the service and access to it to make sure it is in the spirit of what people voted for. This is why I am so interested in what has been said, in particular by Dr. Conlon, about fatal foetal abnormalities versus anomalies. I did not realise "fatal foetal anomaly" was not a medical term until today. It is quite interesting.