Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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1631. To ask the Minister for Health if he is in receipt of the independent review of the legislation on Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018. [1907/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister for Health commenced the Review of the operation of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 in line with statutory and Government commitments. 

The Review is assessing the effectiveness of the operation of the legislation and will be conducted in a fair and transparent manner. 

The Review is being led by an independent Chair Marie O’Shea and comprises of 2 main phases. As part of the first phase of the review, information, and evidence on the operation of the Act has been collected from women who use the service, and from health professionals that provide the service; the views of the public were also sought.

A very substantial amount of work has been completed to date and very informative data collected, which is feeding into the review.

The Chair is awaiting key research from a study, CORALE, being carried out at Trinity College Dublin, that is examining Section 22 of the Act regarding conscientious objection. This research is underway, with input from lawyers, hospital doctors, GPs and strategic managers.  The data will inform the Review. However, as this data will only become available in January 2023, there has been a slight set back in completion time.  The opinion of the Chair is that this data is vitally important, given that it will assist in ?understanding how section 22 is operating.

It is the intention that the review will be made available to the Minister no later than the 7^thFebruary 2023.