Dail Éireann · 2023-04-20
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My question centres around the review of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018. As he will be aware, the review of the operation of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act commenced in line with statutory commitments in December 2021, a bit over a year ago. This consisted of public consultation and a review of the operation of the Act from the perspectives of service users and providers.
Can the Minister state when the report will be made available to Deputies or the health committee, and also to the public? Doctors are in a grey area regarding abortion services, particularly in respect of fatal foetal abnormalities. Regardless of the report, which is a good one, the core focus for me and the HSE concerning the provision of services is increasing the number of maternity hospitals that are providing services.
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My question centres around the review of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018. The review has been published and, hopefully, the Minister will be able to furnish that in the coming weeks.
I thank the Deputy for the question. The answer is "Yes, very shortly". As he will be aware, the review of the operation of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act commenced in line with statutory commitments in December 2021, a bit over a year ago. The purpose of the review was to assess the effectiveness of the operation of the Act. It comprised two phases. The first was an exercise to gather evidence and information. This consisted of public consultation and a review of the operation of the Act from the perspectives of service users and providers. Essentially, it entailed listening to service users and providers and the members of the public interested in having an input into the review.
The second phase was led by an independent chair, Ms Marie O'Shea, to whom I express my very sincere thanks. I met her recently. I now have the report and have looked through it in detail. It is very clear that a lot of work was done by Ms O'Shea and others involved in putting it together. I recognise that.
The second phase was to assess the extent to which the objectives of the 2018 Act have been achieved – many have – and to analyse in that regard the findings of the three strands. The chair also drew on the findings of other relevant peer-reviewed research.
I confirm that I have received the report and gone through it in detail. I have met the independent chair and we have had very productive conversations. I have also met some of the clinical leads providing the services. What will happen next is that I will bring the report to the Government, which I hope to do very shortly. We will take it from there.
On the question of whether the report will be published, it absolutely will. We will also publish all the research papers that fed into it.
That is welcome, but people will want to know when the review will become public and the mechanism. Obviously, it has to be brought before the Cabinet. Will it go before the health committee? It would be good for members of that committee to scrutinise it. It is nearly five years since the referendum, which is hard to believe, and four years since the legislation was implemented. There are anomalies, to say the least, in the legislation, particularly concerning the three-day period. That has always been an obstacle to women, as has the 12-week limit. The current legislation needs to be reformed to make it accessible and to make it easier for women to access abortion care.
The report will be available to the Government and then to everybody else very shortly. It is a good report and it is very detailed. It is a very useful report. It has identified various things that work well and various things that we need to improve at an operational level. There are also some legislative recommendations in it. I have no doubt but that the health committee will take time to consider it. Then we will have a quite lively, and hopefully respectful, debate.
My driving concern relates to patient care and ensuring we have the best possible healthcare services in this country. However, I have no doubt that the report will generate debate, as we all expect. It is on a topic that is of much interest to many people, who are coming at it with the very best of intentions. We will be into the debate quite soon.
Can the Minister state when the report will be made available to Deputies or the health committee, and also to the public? Several people have probably read the review. Does the report recommend legislative change? Regarding the fundamentals of the current legislation, there is a lot to be changed, including in regard to the 12-week period and the criminalisation of doctors. Doctors are in a grey area regarding abortion services, particularly in respect of fatal foetal abnormalities. There is a huge grey area and doctors could be criminalised. Therefore, there is much to be examined regarding the review. Can the Minister indicate when it will be made public? Does it indicate to him that the current legislation needs to be changed?
I am prohibited from giving the Deputy an exact date; suffice it to say that it will be made available very shortly. He can read into that what he wants.
This month?
The Deputy can read into that what he wants. It will be made available very shortly. Let us wait until we have the report before we get into operational and legislative recommendations.
Regardless of the report, which is a good one, the core focus for me and the HSE concerning the provision of services is increasing the number of maternity hospitals that are providing services. That only 11 of our 19 maternity hospitals are currently providing services is totally and utterly unacceptable. Therefore, I am working very closely with the HSE right now to increase the number from 11 to 17 this year. The plan for early next year is to increase it from 17 to 19.
There are a little over 400 GPs in the country providing services. The number has gone up by a lot, or by half, in recent times, but we want to ensure there is as much access as possible. Regardless of anything in the report, that is where much of my focus is this year.