The Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, has acknowledged that €171,139 was spent on the deeply flawed and extreme abortion review. This is a huge amount of money considering it has been spent solely on a limited research study and the production of a piece of writing which forms the report.
Even the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, voiced his disapproval of the review for its extremely limited scope of investigation due to its failure to even interview a single woman who considered an abortion but did not proceed with the appointment. Therefore, the amount of money spent on this review considering its flawed outcome is unjustifiable. It is yet another example of the government’s spendthrift attitude, particularly when it coincides with attempts to push for more abortion in Ireland.
The €171,139 spent on the review can be added onto the millions of euro already spent on abortion provision in Ireland since the law became operational in 2019. At a time when the government is complaining about a lack of funding available for key services, there appears to be no shortage of money available for providing abortions or bankrolling reports which seek to make an already extreme law even more extreme.
