I come to this debate as someone who voted to repeal the eighth amendment and is respectful of the freedom of conscience vote for Members of the parties of government but also with a clear sense of our obligations as legislators in a representative democracy. Section 7 of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018, the Act this Private Members' Bill proposes to amend, statutorily required a full review of its operation three years after its commencement date of 1 January 2019. That review was commissioned by the then Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly. It was initiated at the end of 2021 and carried out by Ms Marie O'Shea BL. Drawing on extensive evidence, including 58 service user interviews, 43 provider interviews, 188 GP survey responses and 6,976 public submissions, the report was published in April 2023. It was unequivocal in its finding that there is no clinical basis for a mandatory three-day wait. The report went on to identify as an unforeseen practical consequence of the three-day rule that women are timing out of care, particularly when scans, referrals, weekends or bank holidays intervene. The report, which is now three years out of date, cites how many women already face delays before presenting, whether due to miscalculating gestational age, work and family pressures, financial constraints, language and cultural barriers or domestic abuse. The mandatory wait compounds those delays and can push women over the 12-week limit. Perhaps the most important finding was that clinicians told the review that their training enables them, as it would in every clinical care setting, to identify uncertainty or coercion and to advise additional time where the clinician deems it appropriate to do so. They noted that they would continue to that even in the absence of a State-imposed three-day rule, which is a blunt instrument and is against best practice, including WHO best practice. In simple terms, we should trust our doctors and we should trust women. It is for those reasons that I will be voting in favour of removing the three-day wait and in favour of this Bill advancing to Committee Stage to enable an up-to-date examination of the impact of the rule three years on from the O'Shea report.

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