Easier access to contraception and better support for women experiencing crisis pregnancies means fewer women are travelling abroad for abortions, according to the Irish Family Planning Clinic.
Commenting on a small drop in those travelling to England and Wales for abortions last year, Ms Sheila Jones, IFPA medical director, said the news was very welcome.
A total of 6,320 women providing Irish addresses had terminations in England last year, according to figures released yesterday by the British health ministry.
This represents a drop of just over 200 on the previous year, the second year in a row there has been a fall after more than a decade of rises.
Ms Jones said this small reduction was a move in the right direction.
"We must welcome the news that fewer women find themselves in the position where they have to go through the traumatic experience of leaving their own country to go abroad for an abortion."
But greater access to contraception, particularly emergency contraception, was needed along with more non-directive crisis-pregnancy counselling, she said.
According to a spokeswoman for the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, only monitoring over a five-year period of those travelling to England for abortions exposes trends that can be commented on with any certainty.
Irish research into women's decisions to terminate their pregnancies suggested they decided immediately after discovering the pregnancy and acted very quickly, she said.
"Crisis pregnancy counselling plays an important role in slowing down the decision-making process so that an informed choice can be made."
The agency has increased crisis pregnancy counselling by almost 50 per cent in the last 18 months, she said. More than 100,000 text requests have been received by the agency since it began its Positive Options campaign.
The news has also been welcomed by the Pro Life Campaign which hoped the development "signals the tide is turning in the right direction and that the downward trend will continue, as more resources are put in place providing positive alternatives to abortion". But it said the figures remained "extremely high".