Dr Rory O'Hanlon, a medical doctor and a former Fianna Fβil minister for health, rejected a claim that the Government's abortion Bill discriminates against suicidal pregnant women.

"The evidence is that women who go for abortions are more likely to commit suicide." Dr O'Hanlon was responding to comments made by Mr Dan Neville (FG, Limerick West) in the resumed debate on the Twenty-Fifth Amendment of the Constitution (Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy) Bill, paving the way for next year's abortion referendum.

The issue of suicide in pregnancy had been simplified during the abortion debate, said Mr Neville. "I see women who are pregnant and suicidal who can be treated and recover. There are women who are suicidal who can be shepherded through their pregnancy and come out at the end of it cured.

"However, there is a small number of cases of women who are suicidal, who are intent on taking their lives and whose lives are in danger if those pregnancies are not terminated. I accept this is a very small number of women, but these are real people." In the Bill, said Mr Neville, the Government had rightly determined that an intervention could be made in the event of a threat to the woman's life because of physical illness. "Is it not discriminating to say that if there is a real and substantial threat to a woman's life, because of mental illness and the intent to take her life, a termination should not take place?"

Dr O'Hanlon argued that a study in Finland had shown that while pregnancy was a potent protector against suicide, induced abortion appeared to be a risk factor.

"The survey showed that 73 women who committed suicide, from 1987 to 1994, found a mean annual suicide rate of 11.3 per 100,000; the suicide rate associated with birth was 5.9 and that associated with induced abortion was 34.7." He added that as a medical doctor and a former general practitioner, his main concern with the Supreme Court judgment was that it would open the way for abortion on demand.

"Suicide is a subjective feeling. If a woman were to go to her doctor and say that she was going to commit suicide if she would not have a termination of pregnancy, no doctor, psychiatrist or GP, or anybody else, is in a position to say if she will or will not commit suicide." Dr O'Hanlon said a woman suffering from depression, or who felt suicidal during pregnancy, was certainly entitled to full support. The answer was to offer appropriate psychiatric help.