Mr. Salil Shetty:

I thank all the members of the committee. Every single contribution was authentic and reflected many of the tensions in this society which they have to deal with. Ultimately, they must face the electorate and people in their own constituencies, so I thank them for engaging and for taking our contributions seriously.

We met yesterday with people from the Executive branch, the Minister for Health and the Tánaiste, and raised many of these issues with them, but we believe the meeting with this parliamentary committee is probably the most important one. The questions members asked us today as to the process from here on and what replaces the eighth amendment are relevant, but who will give the answers to those? We have some thoughts, but this committee has to move the process forward. It has to come up with a framework and a process which will help us to move forward, because nobody is saying there is not a problem. Everybody accepts there is a real challenge here. If there is one thing this report can do, it is that it will contribute to the process moving forward, not in an open-ended way but in a time-bound manner in that it has a clear end date. Elections come and go, but this is affecting 4,000 women every year. It is a very serious issue and I hope the committee can find a concrete way in the coming weeks to take it forward. I hope an action plan of some sort will come out of it.

I want to restate what we said earlier, because it is important when we are asked what will replace the eighth amendment, etc., and what is our position on the issue. Our position is essentially in line with international human rights standards, and those are clear. Abortion should be decriminalised in all circumstances. The criminalisation of a woman who is already going through such suffering does not make sense. Very few countries criminalise, and we would not expect Ireland to be in that group of countries. Beyond that, we say clearly that it is not only the risk to life but the risk to mental and physical health that must be taken into consideration. Abortion services should be available for women who become pregnant from rape, incest and sexual assault. In the case of foetal impairment, we can come to the question of severe and fatal, which Ms Zampas can clarify. That is our position. We hope it can inform the discussion when members consider what happens next. That is our contribution.

Ireland is in a unique position on this subject, but in terms of the international stage, if the Irish ambassador or representative was sitting on the Human Rights Council and one of the countries which came up for review said that in that country freedom of expression is not allowed because there is a constitutional provision which prevents that, the Irish representative would say it is time it changed its constitution. Similarly, if we were told by a country that the death penalty was very much in our faith and culture, that would be challenged by an Irish representative to the effect that that is not acceptable.

On both counts I would appeal to this committee to think about the way forward and the next steps because I suspect there is no other body which can make that happen.