The crisis pregnancy agencies are mystified. They hear the heart-rending stories of women in crisis pregnancy - thousands of them - every day. They have been struggling by, fund-raising and receiving a pittance from the Government - £750,000 a year in total. And now the Taoiseach, out of the blue, announces a new crisis pregnancy agency. If the existing agencies weren't so understanding, they'd feel insulted.
"Our initial reaction was, why is the Government reinventing the wheel?" says Anne Kennedy of Life Ireland, a non-directive crisis-pregnancy counselling service that helped 4,000 women last year.
"And what impact will the new agency have on women, really? Women, in our experience, need ongoing support. They need childcare. It's the cost of having a baby and childcare that makes them not continue with the pregnancy."
This year, 6,000 women with addresses in the Republic will have abortions in Britain. When considering this option, women need instant, walk-in help - not theorising and good intentions. These are women in anguish, and they want to have a pregnancy test and talk to somebody - and they want it now, says Kennedy. Women and, increasingly, men who need post-abortion counselling also approach Life. "Government should put the money into the agencies that are already on the ground, doing the work," she says.
Alison Begas of the Well Woman Centre, which offers reproductive-health services and non-directive counselling, says: "We weren't informed about the abortion referendum or about the Crisis Pregnancy Agency. It's all come via the media. We still don't know what's going on.
"It's not Olive Braiden's fault, but with all due respect to Olive, for whom we have the greatest admiration, we are very concerned that the only remit the new agency seems to have is as an umbrella, a co-ordinating body. It's all a little bit nebulous at the moment. We are totally in the dark."
The chief concern of the Well Woman Centre is that so many women seem to be operating in an educational vacuum, with little awareness of sexuality, contraception or sexually transmitted diseases. The agency has to address this and not just be a talking shop.
"You don't need a new agency, you need to support the ones that already exist. There are plenty of agencies that could provide services if the money was available," says Tony O'Brien of the Irish Family Planning Association, another group that offers non-directive counselling and reproductive-health services.
He is concerned about the lack of detail in the new agency's terms of reference. "We need to ensure the development of a real policy and finance to encourage a healthy sexual life, free from the risk of pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and other possible negative consequences," he says. "To ensure this, all persons should have individual free access to reproductive services."
Only 25 per cent of women receive post-abortion counselling and contraceptive advice. "We could achieve a figure of 80 per cent," says O'Brien. "If the Government had been serious, it would not have set up the agency. It would be addressing the real consequences of the official hypocritical policy of exporting abortion that the Taoiseach has endorsed. We have a very high rate of late-term abortions, and part of the remit should be to bring down this rate."
There's also an equality issue. Including travel, an abortion can cost £1,000, and a lot of women do not have access to that much money. So they wait and save money, which means they have late terminations, or they go to moneylenders, which means they end up in debt.
"If we were to have an equitable health system, the Government should pick up the tab for abortions," he says. All post-abortion medical checks should be easily accessible and free of charge, he adds.
O'Brien also sees a need for regulation of crisis-pregnancy counselling services. The agencies partly funded by the Eastern Regional Health Authority - among them the Irish Family Planning Association, the Well Woman Centre, Life Ireland, Cura, Pact and Cherish - have all been approved.
"But there are some specialists who take an intensely emotive stance. This is not a battle for souls. The last thing a woman needs is somebody with a highly emotive agenda," says O'Brien.
He wonders if the Government really knows what it's dealing with, when its definition of crisis pregnancy is so "flawed". It reads: "a crisis pregnancy means a pregnancy which is neither planned or desired by the woman concerned and it represents a personal crisis for her."
Many crisis pregnancies are planned, says O'Brien. A range of issues arise after conception, such as relationship break-ups, health issues and unviable foetuses. "The legislation under which the agency operates fails to recognise that a number of women who terminate their pregnancies are terminating pregnancies that were desperately wanted."
The new agency must campaign to change the legislation before it does anything else, he argues.
Cherish, a support organisation for lone parents that also advises women during crisis pregnancies, welcomes the new agency and hopes it will mean increased funding for groups such as its own. Karen Kiernan, Cherish's manager, says: "It is reasonable for women to feel apprehensive about lone parenthood, since 42 per cent of lone parents live in poverty. Then there is the social stigma and social pressure. It is not a very easy or welcoming environment in which to face the challenges of new parenthood. The whole society needs to be more welcoming and understanding of single-parent families."
Pact is a non-directive crisis-pregnancy agency that also organises open adoptions, if pregnant mothers wish. Dorothy Gibney, a social worker with the organisation, says: "Pact have always seen that pregnancy does not just affect the individual that's pregnant; it also affects her partner, her parents and so on. Everyone is affected by it and everyone needs counselling. We are one of the only agencies that offer counselling for partners and grandparents. With older teenagers who are pregnant, we often see that by supporting her parents, they are better able to support their daughter and grandchild."
Charlotte Keery of Cura, another non-directive crisis-pregnancy agency says, "People often make decisions very quickly, without speaking to anyone. There is a fear of parenthood, not just of the problems of rearing a child on your own, but also of stigmatisation. Coping with the whole idea of parenthood and things like childcare, accommodation and parenting skills are very important. Women need to feel safe and secure about rearing a child. Without support, you may make a decision that you would not have made if you had not been afraid."
Can the new agency stop women being afraid? Can it stop women suffering in silence? Can it stop ignorance about sexual activity? And can it really encourage the Government to give women a practical alternative to abortion, not just a moral choice? It will cost money. That's the bottom line.