Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 31 May 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Report of the Review of the Operation of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018: Discussion

Ms Marie O'Shea:

We do not have precise numbers because those data are not collected. One of the things mentioned in the report when it comes to monitoring and evaluation is that it would be good to get an understanding of what people did next when they were refused a termination of pregnancy here. To have that knowledge would be very important from the perspective of designing public health services. There are very few countries that disaggregate their figures. England and Wales will indicate how many people who used abortion services there provided Irish addresses. We know the same from the Netherlands, so we know from those figures that Irish people are still travelling. I know anecdotally-----