Ms Janice Donlon:

The counsellors who work in these services will absolutely support a woman who is exploring the option of abortion. What the ethos of their organisations does not allow them to do is provide the names and addresses of the clinics in England or elsewhere. Absolutely, she can be supported through that. They provide post-abortion counselling also for clients who have had abortions. Certainly, the individual counsellors are there to support women. Equally, the information is available to potential clients on whether they choose to attend that service or not. Certainly, we understand the point about the regional spread of these services. As Ms Deely mentioned, we are looking to develop a national telephone counselling service which we hope will help to open access to all services to individuals around the country who may find it difficult currently to attend a face-to-face counselling session due to geography, social circumstances and so on. Hopefully, that will open counselling services to more women.