Ms Geraldine Luddy:

Sorry, I was to respond to the question the Deputy had in regard to travel to the UK. From the information we have from the clinics in the UK, 375 women travelled in 2020, I suppose, for different reasons but predominantly as women who had a diagnosis of a foetal anomaly that was not fatal and also women who were over the 12 weeks. Under the Act, there is unrestricted access to terminations under 12 weeks but over that there has to be clinical reason. That is to give the Deputy some sense of what we know from the figures there.

To add to what the Minister said on the operation of the Act as we know it now, the clinical lead for termination of pregnancy was appointed by the HSE at the end of 2019. She is a consultant obstetrician. She has responsibility for the delivery of the service, both in the community and in the hospitals.

The HSE knows that the coverage is not adequate and that the geographical spread needs to be improved. At present, we have ten of the 19 hospitals offering a full service. All of them offer some service of termination but in the case of a full service, we have ten. We need to have this geographical spread that the service is in every county.