Gino Kenny presses for publication of termination review

Minister, my question centres around the review of the Health Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Act. Obviously that review is published and hopefully that you will be able to furnish that review in the coming weeks. Thanks very much Deputy for the question. And the answer is yes, very shortly now. As the Deputy is aware, the review of the operation of the Termination of Pregnancy Act commenced in line with the statutory commitments. It commenced in December of 2021, so a bit over a year ago. The purpose of the review was to assess the effectiveness of the operation of the Act. The review comprised two phases. The first phase of the review was an evidence and information gathering exercise. This consisted of public consultation, review into the operation of the Act from the perspectives. Of service users and service providers. So essentially, listening to service users, listening to service providers, and then listening to the general public. People who were interested in inputting to the review. The second phase then was led by an independent chair, Ms. Marie O'Shea. And I really want to express my very sincere thanks to Ms. O'Shea. I met her recently. I now have the report. I've looked through it in detail and it's very clear that a lot of work was gone into by Ms. O'Shea and others who were involved in putting it together. And I want to recognise that. So the second phase then was done to assess the extent to which the objectives of the 2018 Act have been achieved. Many of them have. Analyzing in this regard the findings of the three strands. And the chair also drew on findings of other relevant peer reviewed research. So I can confirm I have received the report. I have gone through it in detail. I've met the independent chair. We've had very productive conversations. I've also met with some of the clinical leads who are providing these services as well. And so what will happen next is I'll bring the report to government. I hope to do that very shortly. And then we'll take it from there. And as to will it be published? Absolutely. It will be published. And it's my intention to publish the, there was research done with it. There was research that fed into it. We'll publish all of the research papers as well as the full report. That's welcome. What I think people will want to know is when will that, you know, review become public? And what is the mechanism? Obviously you have to bring it before cabinet. Will it go before the health committee? I think that's, as members of the health committee, I think it would be a good thing to do that it comes before the health committee to be scrutinised. Because it's nearly five years, hard to believe, since the referendum and four years since the legislation was implemented. And there is anomalies, to say the least, in relation to the legislation, particularly around the three-day period. I think that has always been an obstacle to women. The limit of a 12-week limit, I think, is also an obstacle. So I think the current legislation as it is, needs to be reformed to make it kind of accessible and more easily available for women to access supporting care in Ireland. Thanks very much, Deputy. So to answer your first question, shortly. It will be available to government and then to everybody very shortly. It is a good report. It's a very detailed report. I think it's a very useful report. It has identified various things that work well and various things that we need to improve at an operational level. And there are some legislative recommendations in there as well. I have no doubt, Deputy, but the health committee will take time and will consider the report as well. And then we will have, I think, quite a lively debate, hopefully a very respectful debate. Ultimately, my only, my driving concern is around patient care. is making sure that we have the best possible healthcare services in this country. But I have no doubt the report, as we would all expect, will generate debate. It is a topic that is of a lot of interest to a lot of people who are coming at it with the very best of intentions. And I think we will be, we will be into that debate rather quite, quite soon. Can you, can you give a timeframe when that could be kind of published either to TDs or the health committee and then obviously to the public? And can you give any indications? Because obviously a number of people have probably read the review. What indications that has, I suppose, recommended? Does it recommend legislative change? Does it recommend some of the kind of fundamentals of the court and legislation? As I said, there is a, there is a lot to be changed in relation to the 12-week period, there is relation to criminalisation of doctors. Because at this moment in time, doctors are kind of, are in a kind of a grey area in relation to abortion services, particularly around fatal fetal abnormalities. There is a lot of, there is a huge grey area around how doctors actually could be criminalised. So I think there is a lot to be kind of examined in relation to this piece of review. But can you give any indications? One is when would it actually become public? And, you know, does it indicate to you that we need legislative change to the court and legislation? Thanks, Deputy. I am kind of prohibited from giving you an exact date, suffice to say, very shortly. You can read into that what you want. You can read into that what you want very shortly. And look, I will wait in terms of operational recommendations and legislative recommendations. Let's just wait until we have the report and we can get into that. What I would say though, Deputy, is regardless of the report, and it is a good report, the core focus for me and the HSC at the moment in terms of provision of services is increasing the number of maternity hospitals providing services. We have 19 maternity hospitals, 11 are currently providing services. That is completely, totally unacceptable. Totally and utterly unacceptable. So I am working very closely with the HSC right now to move from 11 to 17 of the 19 this year. And then early next year the plan is that we will move from 17 to 19. At the same time there are a little over 400 GPs in the country providing services. It has gone up a lot. It has gone up by a half in recent times. But we want to make sure that there is as much access as possible as well. So regardless of anything in the report, that is where a lot of my focus is this year. THE END