Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will not accept the amendments which propose making a range of detailed medical and personal information the subject of notifications to the Minister for Health. The Bill already provides for notifications of termination of pregnancy to be forwarded to the Minister to allow the application of the legislation to be monitored. However, the minimal amount of data will be collected to fulfil this function. This is to ensure data protection obligations under the general data protection regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018 will be met. It is simply not necessary or appropriate for the detailed medical information set out in the amendment to be notified directly to the Minister. While it might be useful for further data to be collected to allow, for example, trends in termination of pregnancy to be analysed, it would not be appropriate to include a provision in the Bill for it to be done. In line with its usual practice, the HSE will collect data for the procedure which could be published or made publicly available in a similar way to reports published on other aspects of the health system.

It would not be appropriate to make it an offence not to forward a notification of termination of pregnancy. To do so would be to implement a stricter regime than under the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013.