Ms Noeline Blackwell:

In terms of the care for women, we raise this because of our concern in this regard. Of the 12,000 calls we took last year, more than 400 were silent calls. They were people who picked up the phone and were unable to talk to us on day one. Even saying, "I will call that number" or coming in through our door is a big deal for many people. We are concerned that it can take time. Some people will report their rape immediately to the Garda and that is fine while others will take a long time to do it. That is the is the concern we have. If someone has to self-declare, and even if it is a simple form of self-declaration, someone else has to sign a certificate at the far end of it. Yet again, the woman has to put herself before someone who has a choice in whether to believe her or not and sign the certificate or not. This is in the context of people who are traumatised by the rape and whose consent has been taken from them. This is the essence of what has happened and that is our concern about any form of certification.

If there is an adjudication process many of them will not do it. They will not be able to do it within the context of a crisis pregnancy. We are quite clear that it is not in women's interest to have to go through a reporting process in order to access abortion or any other medical service. Women should not have to do that. That is why we raised the issue.