Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Amendments Nos. 43a and 43b seek to provide for what we understand to be the most important elements of data gathering and notification with respect to termination of pregnancies. This is totally in line with data recording as it exists in the UK at present and with the requirements sought by most pro-abortion organisations, such as the Guttmacher Institute. We understand the view that the public interest in research and data must be weighed against the public interest in confidentiality of patient information. This amendment respects that balance completely.

In the United Kingdom, registered medical practitioners are legally required to notify the chief medical officer of every abortion performed. The UK department of health receives these notifications by way of form HSA4, to which Deputy Tóibín referred, and undertakes statistical processing and analysis on an ongoing basis. A statistical bulletin is published around May each year containing a table of information derived from those notifications. We also know from the UK that the recording of abortions, under ground E of the 1967 Act, which provides for instances where there is a substantial risk that if the child were born, it would suffer from such physical disabilities and abnormalities as to be seriously disabled, is seriously under-reported. We are not making that up. During 2013, it was brought to the attention of the UK department of health that the number of ground E notifications was lower than the number reported to the congenital anomaly register. A matching exercise was carried out for notifications for 2011, 2012 and 2013 data. Results from this matching process suggest that a UK department of health notification was made for 54% of the records. This meant there was potentially an under-count presented in the ground E notification table when it was published. In response to this, the UK department of health asked the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, RCOG, to consider the possible reasons for the under-reporting of abortions on the grounds of foetal abnormality and to make recommendations for improvements. Results from the matching exercise and the RCOG recommendations show that between 2011 and 2013 there was a 17.8% increase in submissions of abortion notifications for foetuses with Down's syndrome. Those are interesting figures.

This clearly points to the need to be as prescriptive as possible in terms of the data that are collected so that we can avoid under-reporting and prevent skewed statistics from being place in the public domain. This is very important. The facts and figures are available to our neighbours across the water.

See this speech in context