Family Planning Bill, 1974: Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mrs. Robinson

Two years ago tomorrow this Bill was published, having been given its First Reading by the Seanad on 17th December, 1974. Now the subject of family planning is to be debated again. Since the Bill was introduced, two of its sponsors, Senator John Horgan and myself, have moved to the Labour benches and have taken the Labour Whip. The third sponsor, Senator Trevor West, remains on the Independent benches and the Bill is being moved and will be debated as a Private Members' Bill.

However, I am deeply conscious of the fact that it would not be debated in this House unless one political party, the Labour Party, had been prepared to assume their responsibility and to support the debate on family planning. It would not be debated unless the Leader of that party, the Tánaiste and Minister for Health, had been prepared to come into this House to listen to the debate and to intervene in due course, having heard the views of a sufficient number of Senators to assess the attitude of the House to the legislation of various methods of family planning and access to information on that subject.

I welcome the Minister and I thank him for providing this opportunity. I am aware that he may not agree with all the provisions of the Bill, but he is the Leader of the only political party in this State which have taken an unequivocal stand on reform of the law in the area. I am confident that this measure, perhaps with amendments will provide a framework for reforming the law. There are only a limited number of ways in which the law can be changed. The Bill attempts to achieve a balance in securing the objectives of liberalising the right to family planning and to access to information whilst, at the same time, providing control of the manufacture, of the sale, and of the advertising of contraceptives.

I should like to turn briefly to the legislative record in relation to the sale, advertising and availability of information about contraceptives. Over 40 years ago, a Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill was passed by the Parliament of the Free State, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 1935. It included a section, section 17, prohibiting the sale, offering for sale, advertising or importation of contraceptives. Despite the changes in Irish life, the changes in social attitudes, the growth in urbanisation, the very different texture of Irish life since 40 years ago, there has been no successful reform of that original measure.

In recent years there have been several attempts. In 1970, the first measure, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 1970, was placed on the Order Paper of this House by Senator John Horgan, Senator Trevor West and myself. In July, 1971, the First Stage was moved by the then Leader of the House, Senator Mullins, and the Bill was defeated on a vote. The effect of that was that it was refused a First Reading and was never published. An identically worded Bill was introduced in the Dáil by Deputy Noel Browne and Deputy John O'Connell where it too was opposed at First Stage and was defeated on a vote in February, 1972. The net effect of that was that both Houses of the Oireachtas refused even to publish the text of a Bill to amend the law, much less debate its proposals.

A second Private Members' Bill, the Family Planning Bill, 1973, got a Second Reading in the Seanad. That debate stands on its merits as the first serious attempt by the Oireachtas to debate the subject of family planning, but the Bill was defeated on a vote in March, 1974, after the publication of the Coalition Government's measure, The Control of Importation, Sale and Manufacture of Contraceptives Bill, 1974. The defeat of that Bill in the Dáil in July, 1974, provided the unique spectacle of the Taoiseach and the then Minister for Education voting against a Government Bill.

Now we come to consider the present measure. It is the third Private Members' Bill and was given its First Reading in December, 1974. It proposes a different way of changing the law from any of the original proposals. It tries to provide a balance —it might be called a compromise— between the two objectives, on the one hand the liberalising of the law in order to promote the right to family planning, the right to information, a right recognised and endorsed by the Supreme Court in the McGee case, and at the same time to provide control in the public interest, a control which does not exist in present circumstances and which can be argued to be necessary.

When the previous debate took place in this House on family planning on the Second Stage of the Family Planning Bill, 1973, I made an appeal to Members of the House. The debate took place on the 20th February, 1974, and I said at column 205 of the Official Report:

I should like to appeal to my fellow Senators; let us approach this subject with compassion rather than dogmatism and with open-minded concern rather than bigotry. Family planning involves the most intimate relationship between a man and a woman. It is a subject matter which has been discussed very broadly outside Parliament in recent times. It is also a subject which was taboo for discussion for a very long time. It is now to be debated inside Parliament.

It was debated on several sitting days of the Seanad around that time and 13 Senators contributed to the debate. In my opinion that debate provided a serious and thoughtful attempt to view the complexities of the whole problem. The complexities arise not least from the fact that the matter has been regulated by the criminal law and has continued to be regulated for the past 42 years by the criminal law. It is always much more difficult for a society to move from a position of regulation by the criminal law to a position of legalisation. It is difficult not only for Members of this House, but also for the public, to separate in their minds the very different concepts of legalising something and approving of it for their own personal conduct or approving of it as a concept or as an idea.

From the very beginning of this debate I should like to draw that distinction. I should like to draw a clear distinction between legalising the sale and advertising and availability under control of contraceptives and approving of the use of contraceptives. Nobody in this House who voted for a reform and change of the law would be going the step further by doing that and approving of the use. Senators could continue to differ very sharply and very deeply and conscientiously and for very strong and deeply felt reasons on whether it was right to use artificial means of contraception.

What is proposed in this House today in this Bill must be understood precisely. The proposal is to legalise the availability of contraceptives in order to allow people to exercise the right identified and recognised by the Supreme Court in the McGee case, and to provide access to information so that citizens can inform themselves responsibly. It is an enabling measure. It is a legalising measure. It does not necessarily bind any Senators who vote for it to approval of the exercise of any means of family planning. That is a matter of individual choice, a matter of individual conscience, a matter of personal responsibility for the citizens.

On the last occasion when there was a debate in this House, there was only one contribution from the Fianna Fáil group. The spokesman on that occasion was the Leader of the Fianna Fáil group, Senator Lenihan. In the course of a brief intervention he said at column 293 of the Official Report for 21st February, 1974:

Our view is that a Government Bill covering the various aspects of this matter arising out of the Supreme Court decision should be published immediately. We will deal with and meet in a very sensible and constructive way whatever Bill is furnished by the Government to the Oireachtas.

Indeed, it is not an unfair characterisation of Senator Lenihan's contribution to that debate to say he did not address himself at all to the Family Planning Bill, 1973, before the House. He made the point, and made it in several different ways in his brief intervention that it was up to the Government to bring in a measure and that Fianna Fáil would react constructively to that situation.

In fact, as Members of this House well know, the Government did decide to publish a Bill and this Bill was in fact published before the debate had concluded in the Seanad on the Family Planning Bill, 1973. As a result, the debate on that Bill fizzled out in the Seanad. The Bill was ordered on the day the Government measure was published, and it was defeated on a vote on 27th of March, 1974, by 32 votes to 10.

I submit that today the situation is very different. Every Member of the House is aware of what happened to that Government Bill. I have already mentioned that it was defeated in the Dáil and that the Taoiseach and the then Minister for Education, and some other Members of the Fine Gael Party, joined the Fianna Fáil Party in opposing it. That is the political reality. Despite the fact that a considerable majority of Senators and Deputies have expressed the private view that the law should be changed, there appears to be a situation of stalemate. Worse than that, the subject has become a political football which is tossed around to gain cheap political advantage without any serious concern to remedy the situation. I submit there is a responsibility on the Members of this House today to break out of that stalemate, to stop regarding the issue of family planning in Ireland as a political football.

I submit that the situation has changed radically from the position in early 1974. There is no prospect of a Government Bill at present. That is a political fact. But there is a problem. There is a need to change the law. So how can the Members of this House address themselves with concern and with seriousness of purpose to that problem? How do we get the law changed? I would submit that, if Members of this House regard the Bill before them today as a reasonable measure for changing the law, as a balanced measure, as a serious proposal and appropriate framework for changing the law, then we have a responsibility we cannot evade.

We cannot play cheap political games with it. It cannot be used as a way of embarrassing the Labour Party, who are prepared to take a stand on the matter. It cannot be used to drive a wedge between the parties in Coalition because all of this will not fool the Irish public. It will not fool the women of Ireland. It will not fool the young people. They are sufficiently intelligent to see such tactics for what they are, and are becoming very cynical about the operations of political parties when it comes down to playing cheap political games of that sort.

There is no Government Bill in prospect, but there is a serious proposal to change the law. It must be remembered that the debate today is a debate on the general provisions of the Bill, a Second Reading. The proposals in the Bill are open to reasonable amendment. The Bill can and indeed should be improved in its passage through the Seanad. There is no suggestion that the proposals in this Bill are immutable, that it is in some way a fixed, inflexible measure which cannot be changed. Indeed, that is not even the democratic reality. The proposals in this Bill are in the hands of this House. It is this House which will determine how the Bill is debated and what progress it makes, what amendments may be made to it, whether it becomes an instrument of changing and reforming the law, correcting an unacceptable and unjustifiable situation.

What is the factual background and reality of the situation? Since the Supreme Court judgement in the McGee case, any person in Ireland, of any age, and whether married or not, can import contraceptives for private use. They cannot, however, inform themselves about the different methods of family planning because of the provisions of the Censorship of Publications Acts, 1929 and 1946. The result is that there is, in one sense, too much freedom to import without any responsible control—responsible in the sense of responsible information about use. This aspect is very much a reality at the moment, because in July of this year notification was sent to the deputy president of the students union in Trinity College informing him that 36 booklets were withdrawn from a parcel he had ordered because their importation into Ireland was prohibited under the Censorship of Publications Acts 1929 to 1967.

The books in question were 30 copies of a booklet called "Planning with Discretion" and six copies of a booklet called "Manual of Family Planning" by Dr. Eleanor Mears. This latter booklet, which is published by Syntex Information Service for the medical and allied professions, is a standard educational reference for English schools and is available in many of these schools for students in their final years. It is regarded as a balanced educational booklet for school leavers in England. These school leavers, of course, have access to contraceptives where the sale is not illegal. The whole climate in that country is sufficiently different for me not to want to pursue simplistic comparisons with the situation in England.

The reality in Ireland is that young people of 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 years of age can import contraceptives, can use contraceptives, but they cannot get information to inform themselves about them, to inform themselves about the risks, to inform themselves about the health aspects, to come to a responsible decision. I regard that as being a totally unacceptable and urgent situation. I regard it as a situation which should unite Senators on both sides of the debate on this matter. It should be of concern to those who want control and regulation in relation to contraceptives, as much as to those who want more liberal access including access to information, because the present situation is the worst of both worlds. It is a totally unacceptable situation to responsible members of political parties and, for that reason, I hope we will concern ourselves with the realities of what is happening in Ireland.

There was a decision by the Censorship of Publications Board in November, 1976, banning the family planning booklets issued by the Irish Family Planning Association on the grounds that they were deemed to be indecent or obscene. Since I am professionally retained in that case, and since legal proceedings are issuing, I do not wish to make any comment on that particular matter.

I should like now to refer to some statistics of the practical need which is felt by Irish citizens for access to family planning advice and access to family planning services. As Members of the House know, there are now several family planning clinics operating in Ireland. There are two clinics in Dublin, one in Synge Street and one in Mountjoy Square. There is a clinic in Tuckey Street in Cork. There is one in Navan, one in Limerick and I understand one is about to open in Galway.

Professor Quinlan

Does the Senator ignore the natural family planning clinics?

Mrs. Robinson

There are, as the Senator points out, clinics which advocate natural methods of family planning. I do not ignore them at all. This morning I checked the figures in the two Dublin clinics of patients visiting during 1976. In Synge Street, the total number of patients for this year was 11,802. The new patients for this year were 3,400. In Mountjoy Square, the total number for this year was 18,100 and the total number of new patients for this year was 3,240. Of course, these patients or clients are women. Almost 30,000 clients went along to the two Dublin family planning clinics. The exact total is 29,902, and of these 6,640 were new patients. This is apart from the thousands of women who write to the Family Planning Services Limited for information. There is a postal service of information about family planning.

I should like to invite Senators to consider these women. These are 30,000 ordinary women in Ireland. Some of them come by train and by bus to Dublin from all over the country, while a considerable proportion live in Dublin. They often come with a feeling of shame, with a scarf pulled down over their face, hoping that nobody will see or recognise them. Some of them, when they get inside the door of the clinic, are so nervous they can hardly take advice. They desperately want advice and help, and they are forced by our society to come like criminals and seek it in the family planning clinics.

The family planning clinics themselves have the appearance of a pressure group. They appear to be outside our medical services. They appear to be a sort of protest and pressure group, although they are providing a service for which there is a serious and rising demand from the ordinary women of Ireland. What I should like to see is the whole subject of family planning forming part of our mainstream medical service, not being promoted in a pressure group way, but in a healthy, relaxed and mature way, part of health board and maternity hospital involvement, so that women would not have to sneak up to Dublin to get advice, so that they did not have to pretend they were doing something else.

We are not talking about an academic subject. We are talking about a very real situation. I have heard it said there is no real pressure for reform of the law: "The situation is more or less working all right. Why raise it now? Why create difficulties? After all there is no real pressure for change". It is a fact, and one which we need not be proud of, that we seek "Irish" solutions to some of our problems and we have sought Irish indirect solutions to this problem.

I have seen various figures quoted ranging from 30,000 to 80,000, to identify the number of Irish married women who use the contraceptive pill in Ireland today; but, of course, the pill is not a "contraceptive" in that sense. It is a cycle regulator, and we have this medical phenomenon of the cycle regulation problem. It probably has something to do with our climate.

People can now import contraceptives because of the decision in the McGee case and those who are well enough off to have private doctors, those who are well enough informed to be able to import contraceptives, those who travel and can bring back contraceptives if they wish to use them, are all right. This seems to have eased the pressure a little and, therefore, why should we bother about the situation?

There are very good reasons, indeed, to bother about the situation. These are the reasons which relate to the absence of any logical controls, the absence of access to information, the need for the service which is evidenced by the number of women who go to the family planning clinics, and the number who use the contraceptive pill on prescription. These people are entitled to exercise their constitutional right, as identified in the McGee case, without its being a matter regulated by the criminal law.

These people are, above all, entitled in the exercise of their constitutional right, to access to information on the subject. It is, I believe, totally unacceptable, irresponsible and unwarranted that people cannot inform themselves in Ireland on the use of contraceptives when they have a constitutional right to use and to import contraceptives.

On a previous occasion I quoted a number of extracts from the McGee case which showed the extent to which the judges of the Supreme Court in that case had identified a right to marital privacy and had made it clear that, although the only decision that needed to be taken in the McGee case to provide a remedy for Mrs. McGee was to strike down the subsection preventing importation, but that, if the situation continued to be difficult, there could be a constitutional challenge of the prohibition on sale of contraceptives if people could not get access to contraceptives.

This would involve some other individual woman—some other fisherman's wife perhaps?—somebody else to mount a High Court case which might have to go to the Supreme Court. The woman would have full publicity for her personal problems, have to go through the strain and the trauma of appearing in court, of being cross-examined by clever counsel— the whole rigmarole of it—in order that the matter could be resolved through our court process, in order that the Judiciary can take responsibility that the Legislature has not been prepared to face.

That is not satisfactory. It is not satisfactory because the courts are not equipped to make a balanced legislative decision. They can only view each case on its merits and decide on an ad hoc basis in the particular case, and the result is often not satisfactory. The result of the McGee case is not satisfactory. It is seriously unsatisfactory in that there is a right to use and import contraceptives but still no right to inform and to have trained and equipped people to provide that information.

One other practical aspect that I think we should consider is the question of public attitudes towards a change in the law. Here I should like to refer to the results of two opinion polls taken by Hibernia magazine and published in the issue of Hibernia of the 3rd October, 1975. What Hibernia did was to publish the results of a poll in 1974 and of a subsequent one in 1975, revealing very interesting changes of attitude. The figures reveal a decline in the number of people who were overall in favour of a change in the law and a rise in the number of people who were confused and uncertain and did not know whether they wanted the law changed. I think it might be a very fair comment to observe that this change in attitude, such as it was, and this confusion would have been greatly influenced by the debate and vote in the Dáil on the Government measure. However, even given this change, there is still a majority in favour of a change in the law, in particular a majority of married women. In 1974, 51 per cent of all married women—there was no distinction on the basis of religion— were in favour of legalising the sale of contraceptives. In 1975, that figure dropped to 48 per cent. In 1975, 68 per cent of people of both sexes between the ages of 16 and 44 were in favour of a change in the law. This figure held steady. I suffer from an inability to read statistics; that is why I am making such tedious work of this. There is evidence that 54 per cent of all adults in 1974 were in favour of the law being changed, 47 per cent were in favour of a change in the law in 1975. The proportion of men in favour of a change was higher both in 1974 and 1975. Nevertheless the figure for married women is a very striking one, I think.

The overall position is that the subject of legalising contraceptives is no longer a way-out and radical proposal. But it is one which has been accepted by the vast majority of people in this country who wonder why there has not been an amendment of the law. Ordinary people are amazed that it has not been possible to get a Bill through both Houses of the Oireachtas legalising the sale and availability of contraceptives.

I have already referred indirectly to the health aspects of this matter by emphasising the unacceptable situation where people can import and use contraceptives with no restriction and no control but cannot at the moment inform themselves responsibly about the risks, about the methods of using them, about the way in which they should use them if they decide to so do. That is a very considerable health risk. I think that the medical profession in Ireland has been very slow to face up to its responsibility and to provide the professional expertise, the professional knowledge and experience which it could have provided. There has been a reluctance to be involved in what is regarded as politics, a reluctance to take a stand, a reluctance to give leadership.

However, attitudes are changing very considerably. Attitudes in the health boards have changed very dramatically. I was encouraged to see that at a meeting of the National Health Council on 22nd October, 1976, a resolution was passed unanimously in the following terms, and I quote:

That the National Health Council requests the Minister for Health to urge the Government to bring before the Oireachtas at the earliest possible date a Bill to facilitate family planning and to provide for the control of the importation, sale and manufacture of contraceptives and other matters connected with the above matter.

It is for this reason, above all, that the proposers of the Family Planning Bill, 1974, decided that the Minister for Health is the appropriate Minister to have responsibility and jurisdiction in this matter. Since the matter was initially regulated by the criminal law 42 years ago and therefore fell within the jurisdiction of the Minister for Justice, it is difficult to move from a position of criminality and penalties to one of legalising and emphasising the health aspects. But that is the step which we must take. That is the psychological step which we must take. The Bill before the House tries to achieve that framework.

I should like to turn now to the terms of the Bill itself. Before doing so, I wish to review very briefly the earlier measures and point out the way in which the present Bill is different. Let me start with the first measure, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 1970, which was refused a First Reading in the Seanad and then in the Dáil. This was a short Bill with three operative sections. It proposed to amend section 17 of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1935, by providing that it would not be lawful to sell or offer for sale any contraceptive except in certain authorised places such as chemist shops, hospitals, health boards, family planning clinics, and again I quote:

...any other place in respect of which permission has been granted in writing by the Minister for Justice.

The other sections proposed to repeal or amend the relevant sections of the Censorship of Publications Acts, 1929 and 1946. It was a short Bill seeking to authorise certain venues where contraceptives would be available for sale and to amend the Censorship of Publications Acts.

The Family Planning Bill, 1973, which received a Second Reading in this House in 1974 was different in several important respects. First, it proposed to transfer jurisdiction from the Minister for Justice to the Minister for Health and to confer on that Minister considerable powers to make regulations governing the availability of contraceptives. I do not intend to go into detail on it because, as I say, it was given a full debate in this House.

The Government measure, the Control of Importation, Sale and Manufacture of Contraceptives Bill, 1974 was a much more complex measure which retained overall jurisdiction in the Minister for justice. It proposed to prohibit the importation, sale or offering for sale of contraceptives except under licence from the Minister, who could impose conditions on the grant of any such licence.

For the first time in Ireland, it would also be necessary to get a licence to manufacture contraceptives. There were provisions in the Bill prohibiting the display of contraceptives and requiring strict control of advertising. The Bill distinguished between contraceptives and abortifacients and included sections prohibiting the importation, sale and so on of abortifacients. The most controversial provision of this Bill was the proposal to prohibit the purchase of contraceptives by unmarried persons. This was done in section 5 as follows:

(1) A person who is unmarried and who is not the holder of a licence guaranteed under section 2 shall not purchase a contraceptive.

(2) A person who contravenes subsection (1) shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £100.

In my opinion, this section would have raised serious constitutional questions. It is worth noting that the United States Federal Supreme Court has ruled that it would be unconstitutional in that country, under very similar constitutional provisions, to confine the availability of contraceptives in legislation to married people. Indeed, the problem of implementing the section —if it had become law—would have emphasised its unacceptability and, in real terms, its absurdity as a legislative measure. The Legislature would have been trying to extend itself into the marital bed, to monitor whether or not a person was married when the person tried to obtain contraceptives. It would have made it an offence for a chemist to sell to somebody if they where not married. The situation would have been absurd if there had been an attempt to prosecute, but probably the section would not have been implemented. Therefore, it would only have undermined respect for the law.

I turn now to the Bill before the House today, the Family Planning Bill, 1974. This Bill, like the Family Planning Bill, 1973, vests the jurisdiction and control in the Tánaiste and Minister for Health, who is present in the House for that reason. It proposes in section 9 to repeal in toto section 17 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1935, but it reenacts the definition of a contraceptive contained in that Act in section 1:

"contraceptive" means any appliance, instrument, drug, preparation or thing designed, prepared or intended to prevent pregnancy resulting from sexual intercourse between human beings;

Section 2 is very similar to the section of the Government Bill which regulated and controlled the sale of contraceptives. Section 2 would provide that a person shall not import for sale, sell, offer for sale or invite offers to purchase contraceptives unless he is the holder of a licence granted by the Minister for Health. It provides that the Minister for Health can make such regulations regarding the granting of a licence, insert conditions in the licence and conditions relating to the class or classes of contraceptives which may be specified in the licence. The section goes on to provide that a person who is a holder of a licence granted under this section shall not sell, offer to sell, or invite offers to purchase contraceptives at a place other than the place specified in the licence. Elsewhere, there is a provision in relation to resale by manufacturers to retailers but a licensee may not resell or sell otherwise than in a particular venue for which the Minister has provided the licence. If a person breaks these conditions he would be guilty of an offence for which there is a penalty of a fine not exceeding £100. As well as that the Minister may revoke the licence.

In my own opinion and in the view of the sponsors of the Bill, this is a balanced approach to the problem of changing the situation in Ireland from one of prohibition by the criminal law of the sale and availability of contraceptives to one of legalising their availability. As proposers of the Bill, we felt that it was justifiable to provide a method of licensing venues, that the Minister for Health would license venues and license the conditions under which contraceptives would be available. This would be a responsible and mature way of responding to the present need. As the need for contraceptives was felt and expressed by citizens the number of applications for licences might increase and the Minister would, at all times, exert a very strong control over the venues which would be licensed and over the conditions of any such licence. The sort of venues envisaged would be family planning clinics, hospitals and chemists. Not all chemists by any manner of means —some chemists feel very strongly on this matter—but such chemists as wanted to apply for a licence. Because this is an enabling Bill, it does not force anybody to provide this service.

Section 3 of the Bill is identical to the section of the Government Bill in prohibiting the manufacture of contraceptives except under licence. Again, it was felt by the sponsors of the Bill, that it was rather anomalous that it has always been legal to manufacture contraceptives in Ireland but not, under present circumstances, legal to sell them. We felt it legitimate to control the manufacture of contraceptives at this stage. Therefore, we have re-enacted the Government's provisions.

Section 4 relates to the control of advertising of contraceptives. Again, it is very similar to the equivalent provision in the Government Bill. It provides that a person shall not publish, sell, offer for sale, invite offers to purchase or publicly display any advertisement or any document containing an advertisement relating to contraception or send through the post or otherwise deliver to any premises any unsolicited advertisement or other written material advocating the use of contraceptives. Then there is a qualification, allowing for controlled advertising, that subsection (1) (a) does not apply to (a) the display in premises in which contraceptives may lawfully be sold—because they have a licence from the Minister—of such notice as may reasonably be necessary to indicate the availability in those premises of contraceptives, or contraceptives of a particular kind specified in the notice, or (b) the advertising of contraceptives in newspapers and other periodical publications where such advertising is restricted to specifying the trade-names, types and prices of contraceptives for sale and indicating where they may be purchased. So there is control over the type of advertising and the way in which it will be done.

At the moment there has been complaints of a considerable problem of unsolicited advertising of the mail order unsolicited advertisements to the Irish public because it is known that we can import without any restrictions but have difficulty in getting access within Ireland to contraceptives. This unsolicited advertising has a nuisance value and is disturbing to people who do not wish to receive this type of post. It is the product of an uncontrolled situation.

Paragraph (c) of section 4 provides for the advertising of contraceptives in publications intended for circulation solely or mainly to authorised persons or registered medical practitioners. Again, there is a provision that the Minister may make regulations to ensure compliance with the subsection and a penalty for contravention.

Section 5, which would provide for review by the Censorship of Publications Board of previously banned literature because it advocated contraception, is identical to and taken from the Government Bill. This was a specific proposal in the Government Bill which was an improvement on the earlier, private initiative in that it provided for periodic review which had not been thought of by the sponsors of the earlier Private Member's Bill, so it is included here as an improvement on the position.

Sections 6 and 7 propose amendments of the relevant sections of the Censorship of Publications Acts, 1929 and 1946, which refer to the banning of books or periodicals because they advocate "the unnatural prevention of conception". These two sections are the same as the sections of the 1973 Bill which was debated in this House and are an attempt to remove the wording "unnatural prevention of conception". Even that wording, which was first introduced into the 1929 Act and subsequently used in the 1946 Act, is open to allegations that it represents one viewpoint on the question of what is "natural" or "unnatural". There is a right to information which is coextensive with the right to do something under our Constitution. If a person has a right to do something that person has a right to inform himself responsibly about it. As there is a right to use and a right to import contraceptives so there is a coextensive right to information about contraceptives.

Section 8 of the Bill is the section which is a departure from the proposals in the Family Planning Bill, 1973, in that it would allow for an involvement by the health boards in the matter. It provides that for the purpose of section 59 (1) of the Health Act, 1970, contraceptives should be deemed to be medical appliances. The effect of that would be that a person of full eligibility would be entitled to apply to the health board for contraceptives in the same way as such a person can apply for medical appliances. It is, therefore, a positive measure of involvement and of extending, through our health service, family planning facilities and family planning services. In the view of the proposers of the Bill it is a very appropriate and proper measure given the public demand and need, given the thousands of women who travel and visit the family planning clinics, given the fact that some of the health boards themselves have recognised this need and have asked to be able to provide this service. As I understand it, they have already been given legal advice and guidance as to how far they can go under the law in providing the service for which there is such a need. Section 8 of this Bill would make the legal change which would allow the health boards to provide contraceptives as medical appliances and to provide them free to persons of full eligibility.

Subsection (2) of section 8 excludes the health boards from the necessity to apply for a licence to the Minister under section 2 of this Bill. It was found unnecessary and anomalous that the health boards would have to apply to the Minister for licences and that the Minister would have to consider restrictions on them. It was felt that the health boards' involvement and responsibility in the matter would make it unnecessary and illogical for them to have to apply for licences and to have possible restrictions on those licences.

Section 9, to which I have already referred, proposes to repeal section 17 of the 1935 Act. Section 10 is a saving clause which is identical to the saving clause in the Government Bill. Section 11 provides for expenses incurred in the administration of the Act.

One area I have not discussed, and do not intend to talk about at length because I did so when the Family Planning Bill, 1973, was being discussed, is the question of equality before the law—how we treat minorities and the whole human rights dimension in our State. When the 1973 Bill was being discussed I put on the record of the House the views of the minority Church leaders. They were clear and unequivocal views. They asked for equal treatment under our laws. They asked for a change in the law which would allow them to feel that they were being treated as full and responsible citizens in the State and that the State respected their moral attitudes in its laws and practice. These views remain the same. If anything, they have been reinforced by spokesmen from the minority Churches who speak out now more strongly than they did even in 1974 in this matter. It is very clear that they want a change in the law relating to the sale, availability and access to information on contraceptives. They feel discriminated against and feel they are not being treated equally or as full citizens by the State. That is an urgent reason for changing this law. It should be unacceptable to us as a modern State, with the historical development we have had.

Witnessing the horror and tragedy in Northern Ireland surely we can learn a lesson about equal treatment of citizens, about pluralism in our society and about respect for the strongly felt but different views of others. The more strongly felt the personal view the more willingness there should be to recognise that others can feel equally strongly. The law should not intervene by its criminal code or censorship code and discriminate in favour of one group or another. It should ensure that a person whose private conscience has been informed conscientiously is entitled to do what the Supreme Court has said is his constitutional right, and does not feel discriminated against but can have access to information and reasonable access to the availability of contraceptives.

That dimension remains as strong, if not stronger, as it was in 1974. It has been voiced again and again. It cannot be ignored or avoided or downplayed by any Member of this House.

I am not arguing that we should change the law because of the impact or influence it might have on Northern Ireland. We have learned one rather bitter and sad lesson in this part of the country. That is that what we do in changing our laws and in facing our responsibilities we do for our own citizens, for the texture of life in this country, and not because we hope for some spin-off effect or some advantage or some new attitude towards us in Northern Ireland. It is for our own citizens, the women of this country, the families and young people of this country, that we need to change and regulate the law. There is no useful way in which Northern Ireland can be brought into the discussion. If it so happened that because we did change this law and other aspects of our laws in this general area there were better relations with Northern Ireland, so much the better. The primary and fundamental reason for doing it is for our own citizens.

I should remind Senators of the words of one judge in the McGee case. I apologise again for putting this on the record of the House but it sums up an attitude towards the primary sections of the criminal law controlling the situation. It is the contribution by Mr. Justice Henchy when he stated in his judgment:

Section 17, in my judgment, so far from respecting Mrs. McGee's personal rights violates them. If she observes this prohibition which in practice she can scarcely avoid doing and which in law she is bound under penalty of fine and imprisonment to do, she will endanger the security and happiness of her marriage, she will imperil her health to the point of hazarding her life and she will subject her family to the risk of distress and disruption. These are intrusions which she is entitled to say are incompatible with the safety of her life, the preservation of her health, her responsibility to her conscience and the security and well-being of her marriage and family.

The result of the McGee case was that Mrs. McGee was able to import contraceptives but she is still not able to inform herself.

The result of the McGee case was that Mrs. McGee was able to import contraceptives; but she is still not able legally to inform herself responsibly under our law about the risks involved, about health factors, about the various methods of family planning. Three years later that is still the position.

So I conclude: Senators who favour liberalising the law and Senators who seek more controls should be united in one important resolve, that the present situation is totally unacceptable and must be changed. I await with interest the views of Senators and the contribution of the Tánaiste in due course.

I commend this Bill to the House.

Mr. W. Ryan

With your permission, I propose to read a brief statement on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Members of this House.

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator is entitled to make a statement. He should use those words rather than saying he is reading a statement.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

Would he read it slowly?

Mr. W. Ryan

The Bill before us deals with issues of such importance that it is inappropriate that they should be dealt with in any measure other than in one introduced by and fully supported by the Government. The Supreme Court decided in the McGee case that any law prohibiting the importation of contraceptives would be repugnant to the Constitution. The result is that contraceptives are in fact being freely imported and there is no regulation or control over their distribution. This is a situation which cannot be acceptable to either those who accept the use of contraceptives or those who oppose their use. The Government have a clear-cut obligation to deal with this problem. It is a negation of responsibility on the Government's part to stand aside and hope that the problem will be disposed of by a Bill introduced by one of its backbenchers. Fianna Fáil give an undertaking that when they are returned to power they will introduce a Bill to deal with this matter. In the meantime we are not prepared to consider any measure other than one introduced by the Government.

Mrs. Robinson

Total shirking of responsibility.

Mr. M.D. Higgins

Will no one have sexual relations until they return to power?

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I would like to start by saying, as I did on the occasion of the last Bill introduced here by Senator Robinson, that I do share the view and the hope which she expressed that this subject should be dealt with by Senators in a reasonable and a compassionate manner. I have no doubt that that is the general view of Senators in relation to the subject.

As far as the present Bill is concerned I want to say quite clearly that I hope the House will reject the Bill firmly and unambiguously. Of the various Bills dealing with contraceptives which have been introduced in recent years, I think with possibly one exception, this Bill is the worst and the exception was the first Bill that was introduced and which I think Senator Robinson forgot in her head count here a short while ago. In fact I think I am correct in saying this is the fourth Bill dealing with contraceptives that Senator Robinson has introduced. One was so glaringly bad that it was seen to be such and was withdrawn and replaced by another. With the exception of that first one, this Bill is undoubtedly the worst that has come before Parliament.

I would like to divide what I have to say on the subject into three parts. Firstly, I would like to indicate some matters of principle which govern my approach to the Bill and to point to some matters which I would regard as being self-evident. Secondly, I want to deal with some of the features of the Bill in not too much detail; but at the same time in some depth; and thirdly, I want to deal with some of the general arguments which have been advanced on the question of changing the law in regard to contraceptives. Some of the arguments have been repeated by Senator Robinson today and others have been advanced from time to time in the discussions we had here previously and in other discussions.

I would like to make it very clear that I am speaking for myself, and others are entitled to do exactly the same. As far as I am concerned every Member of the Fine Gael Party here is entitled to express his own personal opinions with regard to this matter. This is a topic which, to my mind, does fall into the field of conscience. It is my view, which I expressed before, that it is not right, when dealing with a question of conscience, that the party Whip should be applied. Certainly we, in Fine Gael, do not give our party custody of our conscience. We are quite free to express our own conscientious views and convictions. I propose doing that for myself; others on this side may have different views to express; I do not know. But I do know this, that when any public man talks about matters of conscience and matters of morals publicly he runs the risk of being condemned as a hypocrite and of attracting the taunt of bigotry and intolerance.

I recognise that that risk is there, but there are times when we have to pay the penalty for being in public life and we have to accept these risks. This is possibly one of the times. Certainly, I am not prepared to accept that adherence to Christian principles constitutes bigotry or can be seen as a manifestation of intolerance. Generally speaking, bigotry and intolerance can become part and parcel of a person's make-up regardless of his principles, or whether or not he has any principles. Certainly, I am tempted at times to wonder if those who are inclined to charge others with bigotry are not, at the same time, showing themselves—at times in any event—to be guilty of a degree of intolerance. That thought comes to my mind very particularly when I think of the type of criticism that was made—it was very much toned-down in the remarks of Senator Robinson today—but the type of criticism levelled at the Taoiseach and the then Minister for Education following their vote in the Dáil some years ago.

Professor Quinlan

Hear, hear.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Certainly, I would find it difficult to recognise tolerance as the predominant note in some of the shrill shrieks of criticism that were heard on that occasion.

Let me say this also—and I want to say it quite fairly—I do not blame the Opposition party in the Dáil, Fianna Fáil, for trying to make political capital out of the vote cast by the Taoiseach and the then Minister for Education on that occasion. I think that is perfectly natural and is part of politics. I felt then and still feel that some of the other criticism levelled certainly did not show any great tolerance for the views, the feelings, the convictions or the principles of the Taoiseach. If the roles had been reversed on that occasion and if the Dáil had happened to be dealing with an Opposition Bill which was in a free vote situation generally being opposed by the Government, and if the Taoiseach and the Minister for Education had broken rank and had voted for the Bill, I do not think we would have seen so many articles or heard so much talk about collective responsibility. People who were shrillest in their criticism against the Taoiseach would have been lauding him to the skies as a person of courage and a person who was prepared to make up his own mind and stand by his principles.

I think it is time it was said that regardless of what view we may take with regard to this particular Bill or with regard to the Bill which was introduced by the Minister for Justice or with regard to this subject generally, we should be big enough to recognise the courage and the integrity of the Taoiseach in doing what he did, and in doing it in the face of the knowledge of the kind of criticism that was going to be poured out on his head. The fact that he did not, in advance, notify or even signal his intention so that he would not influence other people with regard to their conscientious decision on the matter, should have been accepted then and should now be accepted as showing the depth and the breath of his tolerance in dealing with this subject.

So much on the question of tolerance and bigotry. I merely want to say that I do not hold myself out as being entitled to be in any way censorious about the views of anybody else, no matter how mistaken I may believe those views to be, no matter how critical I may be of the views as distinct from the individuals who express them. At any rate, I am not conscious of entertaining any feelings of ill-will towards those who disagree with me about this subject or about anything else for that matter.

The subject matter of this Bill does bring opposing views into direct confrontation. I know that there are strong, indeed passionately strong, views contrary to my own held by some people and, although I am utterly opposed to them, I readily accept that those views are held with conviction and are expressed, certainly for the most part, with sincerity. It is a mistake to equate sincerity with right. A person may be perfectly sincere and entirely wrong. Having got that off my chest with regard to intolerance and bigotry I want to list some points which, to my mind, are self-evident.

Firstly, we live in and legislate for a State in which the people are virtually 100 per cent Christian. Secondly, the people of this State, which can reasonably be called a Christian State are predominantly— to the extent of about 95 per cent— Catholic in belief and practice, practising Catholics who take their morality from Christ, through the Church which is the guardian of their faith. Thirdly, in dealing with this proposed legislation, we are concerned both with the common good and with public morality. We are also concerned with a question which, by reason of its impact or probable impact on the quality of life in the State, is a national issue involving a question of national policy. Fourthly, the people have a constitutional right in final appeal to decide all questions of national policy according to the requirements of the common good and that is a right which is enshrined in Article 6, I think, of the Constitution. Fifthly, no political party have specifically sought or obtained a mandate from the people for this proposed legislation. Whether or not they are accepted by others, I believe that those are all facts, that they all are self-evident and incontrovertible. I suggest that they should provide at least part of the framework in which this Bill should be examined.

So far as I personally am concerned other parts of the framework would be supplied by other guidelines. These include these considerations which I regard as valid: (1) that the chief aim of the State should be to realise the common good; (2) that the common good determined by the rational consensus of the people in the State cannot be viewed merely at a materialistic level divorced from spiritual and moral values and that the moral good is an integral part of it; (3) that the people are entitled to look to the State to protect their moral rights by adequate civil laws in the realm of public morality and that the State has a duty so to protect them.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

To protect what?

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

The moral rights of the people. Fourthly, in the circumstances of this State, the consensus determining the common good is predominantly a Catholic majority believing in God, believing in the natural and positive law of God. In other jurisdictions a different position might obtain. Consequently in other states people might apply quite different criteria. They might find acceptable to them legislation based on quite different principles. But we are not legislating for other jurisdictions.

I should like to add another one to those considerations, and that is that the civil law should not legislate in the realm of private morality. Nevertheless, when it legislates in the realm of public morality, laws enacted in the realm of public morality are not vitiated because they may have an accidental side effect which impinges on the realm of private morality.

Senator Robinson has mentioned the fact that the views of the minority Churches in the State on the question of contraception have been made known to us. They have been made known to us, and quite rightly so. We are also entitled to have regard to the clear and authentic teaching of the Catholic Church that artificial contraception is morally wrong. We also know the words of His Holiness, the Pope, whom Catholics—and we should not be ashamed to say this— recognise as Christ's vicar on earth, contained in the Encyclical Letter, Humanae Vitae. At this stage I shall only refer to two short quotations from the encyclical, and I shall quote from the London Catholic Truth Society copy.

The first quotation I want to refer to is in Part II, dealing with doctrinal questions. On the question of the consequences of artificial birth control His Holiness says:

Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that men, especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation, need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law.

If one accepts, as I do, the teaching of the Catholic Church as to the moral law on this subject, one must ask oneself whether or not this Bill or any similar Bill makes it easy for people to break the moral law. I am putting that as a factual question. I am not suggesting for a moment that it has entered the minds of the movers or the supporters of this Bill that there should be any desire on their part to make it easy for people to break the moral law. If one accepts the teaching of the Catholic Church as to the moral law on this subject, one is obliged to ask oneself does legislation of this type make it easy to break the moral law.

The other quotation from the encyclical is from Part III, dealing with pastoral directives. It contains this appeal to rulers of nations:

Do not ever allow the morals of your peoples to be undermined. Do not tolerate any legislation which would introduce into the family practices which are opposed to the natural and divine law, for the family is the primary unit in the State.

With those considerations in mind, I ask myself which view accords best with the established beliefs and standards of the vast majority of the people for whom we legislate. We have two views before us. We have the minority Church views and we have the Catholic Church views. Senator Robinson made it clear to the House that in her view the minority Churches felt discriminated against by reason of the present position of the law. We should ask ourselves this question: if to choose the Catholic viewpoint is regarded as discriminating against minorities, is it not equally true to say that if one chooses the non-Catholic view one is then discriminating against the majority?

Those are some of the general considerations which I apply in looking at this Bill and which I suggest, with respect to my colleagues in this House, are reasonable criteria to apply and which are reasonable considerations to take into account.

I should like to have a look now at some of the sections of the Bill. Senator Robinson pointed out that the last such Bill which she introduced into this House was called the Family Planning Bill, 1973. This Bill is called the Family Planning Bill, 1974. On the Second Reading of the 1973 Bill, I made the point that it was entirely wrong that such a Bill should be entitled a Family Planning Bill, although I did accept—and I still do accept— that there was no intentional dishonesty on the part of the proposers in so entitling it. I should like to be very clear about this. This Bill deals with contraceptives. It deals with making contraceptives available for sale. The only thing entitling the Bill to be called the Family Planning Bill is that it seeks to legitimise, to the extent proposed in the Bill, the sale and availability of contraceptives and to what is called liberalise the flow of information with regard to that.

Mrs. Robinson

I would have thought the Long Title to the Bill makes that clear.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I am coming to the Long Title shortly. To call such a Bill a Family Planning Bill is, in effect, to equate family planning with contraceptives to the exclusion of natural methods of family planning. If a Bill so entitled were to be passed by the Oireachtas it would quite unjustifiably procure parliamentary sanction for attaching the legal tag of family planning to contraceptives rather than to natural methods. Consequently I would object at the very start to the Short Title of this Bill as being wrong, inaccurate and grossly misleading, although, I am quite sure, not deliberately so.

Why not call the Bill a contraceptive Bill? That is what it is and I do not see any good reason for shying away from naming it for what it is. It is fair to say that, however misleading or wrong the Title of the Bill may be, it is certainly not as gross a misnomer as one occasionally sees in the media where this or similar Bills are referred to as birth Bills. If there is one thing a contraceptive Bill is, it is the very antithesis of a birth Bill.

If it comes within the definition of contraceptive which the proposers of this Bill would have legalised——

Mrs. Robinson

There is no change in the definition of contraceptive.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Robinson must not interrupt.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I submit that the point I am making is a good one. Senator Robinson may disagree with me. She is quite entitled to her view, but certainly to my view a very dangerous situation is being proposed here. I do not suggest that it is being proposed deliberately, but a dangerous situation could develop if the House were to accept this Bill.

Dr. Browne

Could the Senator say how, if a pregnancy has been prevented, there could be an abortion?

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I want to treat this seriously.

Dr. Browne

This is a serious question.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator O'Higgins must be allowed to continue without interruptions from other Senators.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

It is important that we consider carefully the implications of the definition of contraceptive contained in this Bill in the certain knowledge that the Bill does not propose, as the Minister's Bill did, to prohibit abortifacients. If we do that we will realise the protection that might be afforded to what, if you like, might be called abortifacient contraceptives. It would be afforded to those. I think we will be brought to the very stark conclusion that this Bill could have the effect, which I am quite sure was never intended by its sponsors and supporters, if not of legalising abortion by abortifacient contraceptive at least of providing a virtually cast iron defence against any legal proceedings which might be taken.

Senator Robinson also referred to another distinction between this Bill and what I have been referring to as the Minister's Bill, and it is well that it should be underscored. That is the utter and total failure of this Bill to make any effort whatever to restrict contraceptives to married people. The proposals in the Minister's Bill in this regard may have been criticised on the ground of difficulty of enforcement, but the fact that the legal prohibition on the purchase of contraceptives by unmarried persons was included in the Bill did at least proclaim publicly that legal sanction was not being given or proposed by the Minister for the easy availability of contraceptives for all, completely regardless of marital status, and the fact that no similar provision appears in this Bill is a further black mark against the Bill.

One of the worst features of this Bill is the proposal contained in section 8. Arguments based on minority rights, about which I will say something later, are frequently advanced in connection with this whole question. But, having regard to the provisions in this Bill and in particular those in section 8, it does seem to me—I do not want to appear to be belligerent or talking in any way intolerantly when I say this—that it is not out of place to assert quite categorically and quite unequivocally that the majority also have rights which they are concerned to defend and which they do not want to see eroded.

I do give the sponsors of this Bill credit for speaking and acting from their own genuinely held convictions. I believe them to be mistaken but I do not call into question or doubt the sincerity of their convictions. I wonder if their genuine concern at what they regard as minority rights and their real compassion and sympathy for individuals who might be caught up in seemingly tragic cases of hardship has not blurred their vision in relation to this and has not inclined them to dismiss far too lightly the fact that the majority also have feelings and also have strong feelings which they want to uphold. When we discussed the similar Bill in 1973 I did at that time raise the question of the rights of those who conscientiously object to contraceptives as being morally wrong and against divine law, and I asked if they were to be forced to contribute in rates and taxation to the supply of contraceptives to dispensaries and the health service.

The point I was making then is very relevant now and is brought very sharply into focus by section 8 of this Bill, which proposes to amend the Health Act, 1970 so that a contraceptive may be deemed to be a medical appliance and thereby capable of being supplied by health boards free of charge to persons with full eligibility for medical and surgical service. We have got to remember that, while an item may be supplied free of charge to an individual by a health board, it is not free of charge to the public. Someone is paying for it, and it is quite clear that under section 8 of this Bill contraceptives masquerading under the name of medical appliances if they were supplied by a health board would be paid for by the taxpayer.

What consideration does that show for the feelings of those who generally object in conscience to making any contribution, by taxation or otherwise, for such purposes? Remember this would not be merely a question of asking people to refrain for the common good from doing something they feel free in conscience to do. It would be a question of forcing them by legislation, by a deliberate, positive act of this Parliament to do something which they honestly feel in conscience they are not free to do.

This point was expressed very excellently in a letter which appeared in The Sunday Press on 10th March, 1974. Some of the Senators opposite in the Fianna Fáil Party may know the writer. I do not, but I thought she made the point in an excellent way. She referred to a motion she had proposed at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis of 17th February of that year. She considered that the points which she had been making had been sketchily reported and she wanted to make the point clear. I will not read the entire letter, which was a long one, but she made one point, and I quote:

There has been much talk especially by those who led the campaign to introduce such a Bill that the present legislation infringed liberty of conscience. People who sincerely believed that the use of contraceptives was not immoral were prevented by the law from using them.

That is not strictly correct because the law never prevented their use. She continues:

Their liberty was restricted in the name of the common good but they were not in any way forced to act against their conscience and do what they thought to be wrong. But the Contraceptives Bill which is now being urged on us, whatever form it takes, will be a far grosser infringement of the rights of conscience. It will inevitably mean that a large number of citizens, probably a considerable majority, will now be forced not to refain from using a liberty their conscience allows, but to co-operate actively by paying their taxes in promoting something which they hold to be morally wrong. They will be forced positively to do something which their conscience forbids.

Later on in the letter the writer says:

It should be apparent that I am not arguing on religious grounds but purely on the question of natural justice. Not since the time of the Tithe Acts when Catholics were obliged by law to support financially a religion they believed to be heretical will there be such a monstrous injustice and violation of the rights of conscience in this country—this time perpetrated by Irishmen.

The writer of that letter was Mrs. Dolores Kelly, 403 Clontarf Road, Dublin 3. She has put that point very clearly and very forcibly, and I think it is a point which should not be overlooked by any of us.

I want to deal very quickly, I hope, with some of the general arguments that have been put up in the past. Some of them have been repeated today. There is the question of freedom of conscience and minority rights. I have dealt with that in the context of majority rights, but there are other aspects which I think must be examined. I put forward this as a general proposition which would secure fairly widespread agreement—that subject to the requirements of public morality and provided that to do so is in accord with the common good or at any rate not in conflict with it, minority rights ought to be respected and protected and individuals ought to be free to act in such a manner as they feel at liberty in conscience to do. If claims are made that do not fit into that framework then we have got to ask ourselves how they are to be dealt with. Are they to be conceded without regard to the common good and without regard to considerations of public morality merely because they are staked on grounds of conscience? Some people may answer yes to that question, others will answer no. If the answer is no then I think we should be clear that any such claim must be viewed and decided on in the context of the common good and public morality. If the answer is yes, they have got to be conceded because they are staked on grounds of conscience, then I think there is an obligation on those who give that answer to face up to the consequences and to face up to the further question of where does the process end, would there then be any limit to the nature and variety of claims which would have to be conceded no matter how objectionable they might be, no matter how obnoxious they might be to the feelings of the majority.

Dr. Browne

That is the rationale that was perpetrated in the Nuremberg laws. The majority is right, crush the minority.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator O'Higgins.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

It is all too easy to allow oneself to be caught up unconsciously in a web of well-meaning self-deception. No one likes to be accused of bigotry or narrowmindedness or to be charged with callousness. I think some people, reacting to the kind of interruption that Senator Browne has just made, may quite mistakenly rationalise and see in oneself courage and broadmindedness when really what may be involved is a very natural reluctance to appear hard-hearted or illiberal. We have got to take a decision at some stage whether or not any responsible Parliament can, merely in order to avoid being thought intolerant or narrowminded, concede to any and every claim made by any and every minority provided the claim is made on the ground of conscience. I do not think it can.

I want to put this on the basis of a very concrete example. What about abortion in this context? I do not think anyone will dispute that the vast majority of the people regardless of religious denomination and social strata would abhor and abominate the practice of abortion. At the same time, we are conscious of the fact that there are those who feel free, conscientiously, to advocate abortion and say it should be legalised. Would the majority of Members of this Parliament and the majority of the people be prepared to accept that claim merely because it is made on the grounds of conscience? There is a view that it is unfair to link abortion and contraception, and similarly that it is bad tactics to do so, but if one supports what is called liberalising the law with regard to contraception—because a minority claim it as a right and conscientiously feel free to use it—how can one refuse to accede to a claim for abortion formulated on similar grounds? We must face up to that fact, and now is the time to do it. Is there any other country in the world in which the liberalising of the law with regard to contraception has not been followed by a campaign for legalised abortion? Probably the sponsors and supporters of this Bill feel very shocked at what I have said because I am sure it was never their intention that this measure should, in any way, advance or encourage the demand for legalised abortion. I suggest that this House would be throwing discretion recklessly to the wind if it blinded itself to the step-by-step aspect of the matter, that is, the question of the contraceptive mentality gradually giving way to the abortion mentality and the latter being regarded as the ultimate contraceptive; or if it blinded itself to the way in which Parliament would be stultifying itself and frustrating itself with regard to decisions on abortion by too easy an acquiesence to this Bill on the claim of minority or conscientious right.

I will not waste any more time than Senator Robinson did on the other argument advanced last time, that is, North-South relations and the question of national unity. I was pleased to hear Senator Robinson's views on that question, because she is as aware as I am that some of the advocates of legislation as proposed in this Bill relied heavily on the North-South relations argument as one favouring this type of Bill. Briefly, in regard to that particular argument, I would consider it grossly insulting, albeit unintentionally so both to the Catholic majority in the South and to the Protestant majority in the North. An argument on those lines—that it would pave the way for unity and so on— seems on the one hand, to contain the implication that Catholics in the South would be prepared to barter their convictions for political reward in a calculated exercise in political expediency and, on the other, that the political allegiance of Northern Protestants is so fickle that it can be swayed by legislation of that sort.

I do not want to deal at any great length with another argument which is one of the more important ones made in favour of changing the law but which has been dealt with in the House before, that is, the argument of individual hardship cases. When we discussed the last Bill in the House I expressed my views on 21st February, 1974 at columns 249-50 of the Official Report. I said that there were cases of large families who were badly off and badly housed, cases where there was genuine fear of death resulting from a further pregnancy. I referred to other kinds of cases and I said:

If we as legislators were entitled to look on these cases in isolation and to judge them simply on human or humanitarian grounds without any regard to moral values or beliefs, without any regard to natural law, without any regard to the general common good and without any regard to the possible consequences of the society as a whole, as far as I am concerned the emotional appeal would be difficult to resist in such cases of genuine personal hardship.

That is still my view, but I went on to point out why, in my opinion, we could not look on such cases in isolation and without regard to the consequences.

I do not want to weary the House with too many quotations, but this point might be developed further by looking again at the Papal encyclical, Humanae Vitae to which I referred. I have already quoted a portion of it, and I want to quote a further portion which appears on pages 17 and 18 of the London Catholic Truth Society copy. His Holiness said:

Finally grave consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a Government which in its attempts to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favouring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary they may even impose their use on everyone.

I could well imagine those words causing some raised eyebrows in this country and perhaps being shrugged off by some as being rather far-fetched. The question "who will prevent public authorities from favouring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective?" and the statement "should they regard this as necessary they may even impose their use on everyone". I can see the raised eyebrows and the shoulders being shrugged —"that could not happen; it is far-fetched". That would be the kind of comment that would be made. Yet within a few years of that encyclical appearing one could read on page 1 of the Irish Independent of a case, not in some far off country about which we know nothing but right next door, which shows that these thoughts expressed by His Holiness in the encyclical were very much in the realm of practical reality. The article I am referring to appeared in the Irish Independent on 26th March, 1974. I do not intend to read it all or to mention the names in it. It refers to a couple being refused a home loan because the wife would not be sterilised. It is referring to Newcastle in England. The lady interviewed said that when they inquired about a new development a Newcastle County mortgage department official said a mortgage would only be granted if they could produce a doctor's certificate saying she had been sterilised. The Newcastle housing director was also quoted in this article as saying that the council's present policy for granting mortgages when a wife's earnings were taken into consideration included an insistence on sterilisation. Later on he said that the case was “fairly typical”. That happening, as I said, next door, emphasises the correctness of what was said by His Holiness in the encyclical.

There are two other arguments I want to deal with. One is the argument which was advanced so much on the last occasion, that Parliament should give a lead. This was expressed in various ways by different Senators. Senator West said it was our job to decide these questions. Senator Martin said legislation is not enacted by counting heads. Senator Horgan said we should not go around anxiously counting heads and asking how many people are in favour of it and how many people are against it. Senator Robinson said that there must be leadership from the representatives of the people and not what was described as a "rather cowardly fear of grassroots opinion and fear of change". No matter how the advice may have been expressed, the essence of the message which it was sought to get across was that we should have the "courage" to ignore grassroots opinion. Quite frankly I disagree. We should have the courage to consult grassroots opinion—the ordinary people of the country—before contemplating the kind of changes proposed in this Bill. This is their country, and who have a better right than the people to be consulted as to the kind of country they want for themselves and in which to bring up their children?

Who is better entitled to determine the quality of life and to set the lifestyle than the ordinary people of the country? This country does not belong exclusively to Deputies or Senators or to the judiciary. The judiciary have a function to interpret and apply the laws and to uphold the Constitution. Our function is to represent the people, not to ignore them and not to supplant them. What kind of liberalism and democracy is it to refuse to consult the people whose representatives we are? So far as I am concerned, if that is an example of newfangled, sophisticated, liberal democracy then the sooner the better we get back to the old-fashioned, traditional democracy that was naïve enough to hold that the ordinary people had a right to a say in what was done to their country.

Mrs. Robinson

What about opinion polls?

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

The sooner the better we return to the concept enshrined in article 6 of the Constitution which expressly declares it to be the right of the people in final appeal to decide all questions of national policy according to the requirements of the common good. That is the kind of opinion poll that could be taken.

I have heard it urged at times, in favour of amending the law, that even some Catholic priests disagree with the teaching of the Catholic Church on the question of contraception. I accept that this is so. I accept, too, that the instant, generous and sustained publicity which seems to be so readily available for dissenting views must be not merely an embarrassment to the Catholic hierarchy but also confusing and disheartening to many an ordinary Catholic lay person striving loyally to uphold and adhere to his church's teaching.

I do not regard the line of argument based on the number or the content of dissenting views as being all that relevant. I do not want to run away from it. We are told every now and again that the State ought not to legislate for the moral teaching of any particular church. In that context it is difficult to see precisely the relevance or logic of arguing in favour of changing the law on the ground that some dissenting views have been expressed by Catholics to their church's teaching. What is relevant from the point of view of those who believe that the teaching of the Catholic Church is in accord with the common good is to remember—I may feel embarrassed saying this and others may feel embarrassed having to listen— but I think it is important that we should remember that the Catholic priest who proclaims the authentic teaching of the church is speaking with the authentic voice of the church. His teaching and preaching are backed by the wisdom of ages. He speaks not from a frail pulpit built on the sand of personal opinion but from one built on the rock of authority. His words are supported and upheld by all the strength, all the learning, all the knowledge and all the experience of the church. He is speaking not as an individual but as a commissioned representative of a power far greater than himself and backed by the warrant and sustained by the authority of that power. The dissentient voice, on the other hand, is the voice of the individual. A voice no doubt full of sincerity, concern and compassion but, for all that, only the voice of the individual and of no greater value than that.

Dr. Browne

Do they still say the world is flat?

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I said to Senator Browne previously that I want to deal with this debate in a reasonable way and I think it would only enhance the dignity of this House if other Senators did likewise.

Dr. Browne

I am suggesting to the Senator that they are not infallible. History shows that.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Before I go into my final argument may I say it was my final argument and I am not foreshortening it merely because Senator Browne interrupted me. Finally, we have the argument that we need to change the law in order to be modern, to keep abreast of developments elsewhere and that, by failing to change the law, we are making ourselves the laughing stock of Europe. I want to put another point of view.

In terms of material resources and wealth this little land of ours has not got a lot to give to the world. It never has had. Our people in the past contributed generously something infinitely more valuable by planting and preserving the true Christian faith, by spreading culture and learning and enlightenment far beyond our shores. Those who went before us had the courage to say "yes" when their help was needed. Surely today we can have the courage to say "no"—"No. We will not put at risk the standards and the values which constitute the heritage so dearly won, so stoutly defended, and so preciously preserved by our parents and theirs before them". We may have to face the sly sniggers, the superior smiles, the supercilious looks. What of it? Let us face them, and let us face them without shame or apology. Let us tell those who would have us as the laughing stock of Europe that we are not afraid to remember and to honour the steadfast courage of those of past Irish generations who kept intact our heritage and handed it down to us and that we, for our part, in our time, by our courage, will do no less for future Irish generations.

Professor Quinlan

I had intended to deplore wasting the valuable time of the Seanad at this time of the year with such a debate when we could more profitably have been engaged on discussing the Government's Green Paper or, indeed, trying to make some analysis of the economic situation in which we find ourselves. Having listened to the last speaker, I have changed my mind completely. It is worth while for the nation that this debate has been held if only for the excellent contribution the Leader of the House, Senator Michael O'Higgins, has put on record.

In my 20 years in this House I have never heard a finer contribution. It was a cold, calm, reasoned analysis that dealt in a very fair way, in a very comprehensive way, with the problems at issue. I believe and I expect that long after we have left this Seanad Senator O'Higgins's speech will be read and appreciated as a masterly exposition. That is only what we would expect from someone who has spent most of his life in politics, has made many contributions, and has come from a family who were never short of courage when courage was demanded. That courage is present today in their representative, Senator Michael J. O'Higgins, who I am happy to applaud for his contribution.

I do not intend to deal with the points raised by Senator O'Higgins because that would be presumptuous of me. All I can say is that I heartily endorse everything he has said. I am sure the vast majority of the Irish people will likewise endorse his sentiments and his contribution. That will be the Irish nation speaking, for which 1916 was fought, the Irish nation successive Governments have sought to establish. That is the heritage that has been given to us and which we hope to pass on to our children.

I do not want to take up the time of the House unduly, but I want to deal with other facets of the issue which may appear more pragmatic than what was dealt with by Senator O'Higgins. I want to be associated 100 per cent with the idealism, the ideals and the forthright and courageous speech by Senator O'Higgins. He put in very clear perspective the question of so-called minority rights, when he posed the question quite clearly: has the minority here who support abortion a right to have facilities for abortion provided for them? Indeed, in that context we do not have to travel too far to meet members of that minority, because Senator Browne is on record in this House as favouring it. Another Senator opposite, Senator Quinn, was reported in the public Press as advocating it in the past year-and-a-half.

Nobody will concede that this minority should have what they claim as their right in that regard granted. We have got to insist that what we are concerned with here is legislating for the common good, and we have to look at the common good from all aspects. What the Bill asks for is the same situation substantially as prevails in Britain today. In other words, free availability of contraceptives. As Senator O'Higgins has pointed out, freedom to import after the McGee case decision is being retained in this Bill by default, and the right to advertise if there is not enough high pressure advertising on each and every aspect of birth control in the magazines which flood the country.

So, what are we asked? To follow the road of mother England, to follow along the road to decadence which has so quickly and so drastically overtaken Great Britain in the past two decades. Does anyone here seriously want the situation that prevails in English schools today to prevail here —sex education, with all the implications that go with it? Has that improved the quality of life in England? Has it improved the ability of England to face crises or is it responsible for their present collapse? The same can be said of American society which is the free, open, contraceptive, society which is advocated for us here. Has anybody here met parents from the United States who do not deplore the conditions under which their children are educated? They marvel at the relative, if you wish, old-fashionedness of our scheme where children can grow up naturally in the school system without the pressures of sex education, without the pressures of the sex shop around the corner being foisted on them, and without the spectacle of abortions in primary school for the 11- and 12-year-olds?

Mr. McGlinchey

They go to England.

Professor Quinlan

Surely that is the picture we must look at. On the other hand, we must face the fact squarely that family planning is essential today.

Ruairí Quinn

I am glad the Senator recognises that.

Professor Quinlan

We have to face the fact that many of our families legitimately want to be able to regulate their families. There is nothing wrong in that. No church has condemned that, least of all the church of the majority. It is to that we must address ourselves and not the caricature of family planning as if family planning was nothing more than contraceptives and contraceptive practices which now scare their advocates in England and in America. In today's Irish Independent in the centre page we see the concern of the British medical profession as shown in the British medical journal The Lancet about those so-called marvels of science which were sold to us three or four years ago. We were told all you had to do was prescribe the pill or an IUD and that was that. That is coming home to roost.

Business suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 2.30 p.m.

Professor Quinlan

As I said before the lunch adjournment, I endorse wholeheartedly and completely the excellent statement and analysis made by Senator Michael O'Higgins. I want to pass on from that and to add some other points both on the practical question of family planning and on some of the objectionable features I find in the Bill.

First of all, the Bill opens the way to the introduction of the contraceptive mentality into our schools. That, at least, was provided against in the last Bill where the use of contraceptives was to be restricted to marriage. In other words, it was to be kept out of our schools. When we see the destruction that this contraceptive mentality has wrought in schools in England and in America, we are mad to think for one moment of introducing anything like that into our schools —opening the way for the shop around the corner to have all those on sale right next to our schools. Surely the proposers of this Bill were not acting responsibly or rationally when they suggested that we follow the slavish British pattern in that manner.

Secondly, I refer to this idea of defining these as medical devices and putting them on the health board charges. Surely we are conscious of the extreme urgency to prune health board charges, not to add to them. In Canada, where these devices are supplied free, we find the expenditure was almost 50 dollars per head, which is an enormous figure. We know the cost of dishing out pills indiscriminately. At last sanity is breaking in England, and the Labour Party have at last faced reality there. They realise that permissiveness is not the foundation on which to build a nation. Perhaps it is too late to correct the rot there. The empty places in the schools in Britain show the havoc that contraception and abortion have wrought in the number of children there. In Ireland we are in a fortunate position. At least we can claim one first in the EEC and indeed in Western Europe, that we have more children under the age of 21 per thousand of the population than any other State in Europe.

Dr. Browne

And more girls going to England for abortion.

Professor Quinlan

I will not join in disputation with the Senator. We find that in England the two have combined to cut drastically the number of children. In our case we have this large percentage. At the moment it is creating pressure to expand our educational system to cope with it. But in the next decade these children will be the productive force in the country and therefore we look ahead with confidence, whereas our neighbours and others look ahead into the decadence of an increasingly ageing population, with fewer people to provide the real work force. That few have not got the work ethic, again something that stems from society and the feather-bedding in which they have been brought up. That is a most abominable feature of the present Bill, something that none of the previous Bills had contemplated for one moment.

Let us leave these points and turn to what is at issue. What do we need here? We all agree that there is a need for proper family planning in the full sense of the word. That is accepted and endorsed by every responsible body including the church of the 95 per cent majority here. Family planning is a responsibility of responsible parenthood and the question is: how can that be brought about within the moral susceptibilities of the people concerned? Senator O'Higgins has gone into that exceedingly well. There is no question of what the answer to that must be for the vast majority of the members of the Catholic Church in the country.

But, leaving that aside, let us ask about the effectiveness of what is proposed. In other words, we are still, as it were, in the dark ages of medicine, where we believe that a pill can solve everything and that all we need is a liberal supply of those birth control pills and all will be well. It is an attractive solution for the housewife who is harassed by having too frequent pregnancies or whose family is beyond what they think they can reasonably cater for. This seems an attractive solution. Just call on the pill again, whether it is the aspirin for the headache or whatever it is, just another pill will solve this.

That is the mentality that was there five years ago because it was felt that this was the answer, even though it went completely against the natural order and prevented natural biological functioning of the body, which to any layman would seem to suggest that one cannot tamper with nature to that extent and get away with it. We have read at various times over the past couple of years of increasing concern in America, Britain and elsewhere about the effect of the contraceptive pill and of the second measure this intrauterine device and we see the various reports and statistics of deaths and other disorders caused by them.

Today in the very centre page of the Irish Independent, for 18th December, we have a quotation from the British Medical Journal warning on methods of artificial birth control, warning from the medical standpoint, a warning about the danger of abnormal pregnancies if women use certain artificial birth control methods. The article continues:

This relates to intrauterine devices (IUDs), which are inert foreign bodies, such as copper, kept within the womb. They do not stop conception, but prevent the fertilised ovum from establishing itself. The British Medical Journal has now commented, in a leading article, on the “remarkably unfavourable outcome of unplanned pregnancy in IUD users, both in terms of ectopic gestation and of miscarriage”. This is a reference to when the device, which is not a completely reliable means of birth prevention, fails, and a woman becomes pregnant unintentionally, with sometimes very serious complications.

That opinion is not on moral grounds. That is on medical grounds, a considered opinion given in the BMJ, something we should take cognisance of before we rush headlong in and believe that that is the solution to our problem. Also it has emphasised that with the pill there remains an increasing rise to thromboembolism, clotting of blood in the arteries or vein often resulting in death and a hazard of myocardial infraction—heart blockage—increasing drastically in those over 35.

That is the most significant statement of all in this, because for those who are family planning, a plan will generally aim at having their family completed by that age. There is still the age above that at which they are anxious to avoid further pregnancies. Yet the pill which is dished out and which this present Bill wishes to facilitate and to facilitate through the health boards is the worst thing possible for the group over 35. For one thing it completely masks when the menopause occurs and therefore the only solution then is to keep on giving the unfortunate patient the pill up to at least the age of 55. That is surely making a guinea pig in the worst possible way of the mothers of the country.

That was in the Irish Independent today. Yesterday the same paper carried—the centre page again—the WHO backing for natural birth control courses. WHO, who are not renowned for their observance of morals or ethics in those questions—they are purely pragmatic—are spending in the current year over £4 million on research and education on natural family planning techniques. This is a development which was just beginning at the time of the last debate. Now it has reached the stage of spending £4 million because they have found that the pill did not solve everything—in fact, it did not solve anything. Therefore they are seeking for other means and methods.

But let us come nearer home. I would hope that the proposer of the Bill would have taken time out to consult with Professor Bonner, the distinguished head and professor of gynaecology in Trinity College, Dublin. From her contribution, there does not seem to be any sign that she has in any way consulted with the distinguished professor or learned from him. Professor Bonner is a consultant. He has a distinguished research record and is a consultant on fertility control to the WHO. He was appointed to the Chair in Trinity College Dublin just over two years ago. Since then he has been an outspoken critic of the dangers of the artificial method of birth control and an equally enthusiastic advocate of the natural family planning method, especially the Billings method, which is developing and spreading very rapidly and appears to hold the answer for rational family planning for all our people.

The Minister has a first class example of this right on his doorstep in Wexford where Dr. Doyle, who is president of the Irish Natural Family Planning Group, has been successfully working this method in Wexford for the past five or six years with outstanding results and it has spread to all the neighbouring regions, into New Ross, Kilkenny, west Waterford and all that region. There is no excuse for the Minister or for the Labour Party, or for the proposers of the Bill not going out, taking their blinkers off and seeing what is being done. I am not asking them to take my word for it. I should not like them to do so but I should like them to see that there is now, after an effort by many voluntary groups in Dublin, Wexford, Cork, Galway and all over the country, more than an experimental presentation of the method of natural family planning —the Billings method. There is available there a record of people who have followed it successfully. The difficulties encountered in coping with larger numbers and so on can be investigated and reported on.

The stage has come when fortunately this evidence and this experience is now available. Therefore it should be a high priority with the Government through an inter-departmental committee to investigate thoroughly the situation. The medical profession, being usually conservative, have been slow to respond to this natural family planning because they became rather wedded to the pill in the late sixties. But now, led by Professor Bonner, they are taking the blinkers off and the present chairman of the Irish Medical Union when he was inaugurated last October made a very forthright speech and plea to his fellow practitioners to go and study the natural methods of family planning because he thought they had a great deal to offer. That is the situation in which we find ourselves.

From the point of view of the State, first of all, these methods know no boundaries either of sect or creed or colour. Neither is there any knowledge level required. It is something, I understand, that women instinctively recognise. It is teaching them to recognise the functioning and the symptoms of their own body and to interpret that information. That is still evolving. The WHO are spending a great deal of research money on it. The Billings group in London and Australia are working on it to make it still easier and its application still more definite. There are two things that commend it to us above everything else. First of all, it is absolutely compatible with the beliefs and with the stands in the moral code of the Catholic Church. In other words, it is fully acceptable then to all our people. Secondly, in the centres where it has been operated in the country and so on——

Dr. Browne

Surely not all our people.

Professor Quinlan

——it is used by all patients. In other words, the members of the other Churches have found it equally effective as the members of the majority Church and their evidence is available to any departmental committee on that score. It is fully compatible. Secondly, it is something that has no continuing cost in so far as once a woman has learned the symptoms, has learned the functioning of her body, not alone then is she independent for the rest of her life, but she can act—and most are eager to act—to help other women similarly. It is something that is never going to place a burden on the Exchequer. That is of secondary consideration to us in the present situation.

Above all, I mention again the BMJ verdict on the pill, that its dangers increase radically after the age of 35. It is then especially that the Billings method comes into its own in that the woman is able to recognise with absolute certainty whether the periods are irregular or not. It was hoped 20 years ago that some system like that might be adopted and now it has come and it is developing very rapidly. Let us not be caught in something second-hand, something shoddy, something that is repulsive coming from mother England. Let us use our own intelligence. Let us examine what is happening and what is most compatible with the moral aspirations of the people as a whole and is at the same time highly practical and easily attainable.

In the case of the present debate I would shudder to think that either the proposer, Senator Robinson, or the seconder, Senator Horgan, was talking for the Labour Party in this because I have too much respect for the abilities and for the integrity and common sense of the Labour Party to feel that they can be talking for the Labour Party in this matter. Am I right? Is there a Whip on this? Is this Labour Party policy?

Dr. Browne

The conference decided it some years ago.

Professor Quinlan

Some years ago. If we are going to be bound by such types of outmoded decisions there is no point in bringing us here as legislators. No party worth its salt would claim that things do not change and that the situation has not changed in a matter of six to eight years. I think I would be right in saying that this has not the Whip support of the Labour Party. In that regard I want to endorse the tribute Senator O'Higgins paid to the Taoiseach for his action in the free vote situation. The one thing it did above all else was to underscore that if a thing is labelled a free vote, we want it to be a free vote; we do not want free votes brought in that are only an undercover for a Whip vote. To that extent the action of the Taoiseach and some of the other Members contributed to that underscoring. I think the Taoiseach was too reticent in not allowing his views to be known. Perhaps he took the idea of a free vote too far, that his views should have been known earlier. I welcome, as one who has been many years in this House, the emergence of real free votes. I hope we will see many more in the future.

There is one other point I should like to make. I should like to call attention to the great work that has been done in the last two days by the Irish Independent newspaper with its central headings on these most important developments in natural birth control and the BMJ warning of today. I wonder what has happened to The Irish Times? Has it gone on Christmas holidays? Has its means of scooping news suddenly disappeared? It is extraordinary because, when it came to splashing some news on alleged failures by the Billings method two months ago, they were first with the news. It got front page coverage. It was by an approach to experimentation that could not get past a first-year university student because it was neither experimental nor informative to patients. The whole thing—as was shown in subsequent correspondence but hidden away—was shown to be a travesty of what an investigation should have been. What has happened to the old lady in The Irish Times that she must be so selective? The pill manufacturers and others will get their dividends without the Irish market. Do not let us rush headlong into the pill situation. Even America, England and the WHO have come to realise its limitations and are now seeking to implement other methods, especially that we have called for here, the natural family planning method.

In short, the time has come for in-depth studies. There are no facile solutions through a Labour Party resolution of eight years ago. The world has changed remarkably since then. The situation is serious. It concerns the health and well-being of our people whether psychological or otherwise. That has to be studied carefully. There should be an inter-departmental committee set up on this matter which should begin to make a real study of the development of the natural birth control methods as shown by the voluntary groups in many centres throughout the country at present. At the same time it should compile the latest information on the situation and the hazards associated with the method that this Bill would all too glibly foist on its unsuspecting public.

Our people deserve more than that. Family planning means more than introducing the contraceptive mentality, as the heading of this Bill shows. Family planning would have to begin by recognising the rights of the vast majority of our married people to have assistance in planning their families in accordance with their conscience. That assistance is now becoming available, is already available in many centres, but needs to be made widely available beginning with the natural family planning groups. In that regard surely we can have no better authority to guide us than the leading Professor of Gynaecology in the country today, an outstanding world figure in this regard, Professor Bonner. I would recommend to Senator Robinson before she comes to reply, that she consult Professor Bonner and get some really expert information and guidance on the issues at stake.

Mr. Horgan

I will be brief. Firstly, I would like to congratulate the Minister for Health on his appearance in this House. It is the action of a responsible Minister both in relation to a matter of very deep importance not just to the party of which he is the Leader but indeed to the community he serves as a public servant.

I should like briefly to review the history of this Bill. It was drafted and presented to this House by three Senators, Senator Robinson, myself and Senator Trevor West, who is, unfortunately, ill and unable to be here today. Subsequent to that both Senator Robinson and myself joined the Labour Party. The Labour Party, as I pointed out in other circumstances, did not join us. It did not accept any commitment to this Bill simply by virtue of the fact that we had joined the party bringing it with us in our baggage. At the same time it has, in its wisdom, decided to give us permission to introduce this Bill as a Private Members' Bill in this House. That is the action of a responsible political party and is one which is endorsed by a party decision. While I am naturally glad that the decision went that way, I can also make it quite clear that, had the position gone the other way, deeply disappointed though I would have been, I would have accepted it in all the circumstances.

There should be no ambiguity about the circumstances in which this Bill comes before us. It is precisely what I said: it is a Private Members' Bill introduced by two Members of this House who are also members of the Labour Party.

If I can move on from the history of the Bill to the history of the argumentation around and about this subject, we will find that there has been a considerable evolution over the last 30 or 40 years in attitudes to the subject and in attitudes to legislation designed to deal with it. The first phase of the national argument about family planning could with some accuracy be described as the phase of hysteria. This was the phase which involved the negotiations and the fact-finding attempts that were carried out prior to the introduction of the Bill in 1935 and included, for example, the report of the Carrigan Committee which unfortunately still remains unpublished and to which Members of this House do not have access. The Carrigan Committee Report was referred to several times during the 1935 debate. One gets a very distinct impression from reading that debate that the legislative measures introduced in 1935 were not those recommended by the Carrigan Committee's Report. There is a very strong suspicion that the Carrigan Committee's recommendations were much milder than the piece of legislation which was eventually introduced and which we are now here trying to amend.

Unfortunately, the debate on the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, as it took place in 1934 in the Dáil, was not marked by any great degree of sanity on this very serious social issue. In this it reflected very much the temper of the times. There was almost a reluctance to speak about the whole affair; certainly, there was a reluctance to confront seriously any of the serious social problems involved. The support for the Bill while from the Attorney General side more reasoned and restrained was, on the part of many Members of the Dáil and Seanad, considerably unrestrained. There was talk of racial suicide, not by one but by several speakers. In the Official Report of the Seanad debates, Volume 19, column 1248, Senator Comyn described the trade in contraceptives as something which would mean the destruction of this race. He added:

, and it is on these grounds that I am in favour of this clause.

That is the clause banning their sale. He said further that the defeat of the Bill would be corrupting the youth of this country.

Another Senator at that time, Senator Gogarty, remarked at column 1253 with some asperity:

...there is a worse thing than racial suicide and that is racial syphilis.

However he was conservative enough because he went on at column 1255 to say:

I am sorry Senator Moore did not discriminate between the medical and prophylactic aspects of these drugs and the use of them, which I naturally cannot uphold in order to allow people to sin without having the ordinary consequences.

There were few notes of sanity in that particular debate. One of them I like to think came from Senator Bagwell, at column 1252, when he said:

...on the whole, increased human knowledge is a good thing and it goes step by step with an increase in Christian virtue.

This is what marks off in many respects, even in this day, some of the protagonists and opponents of this sort of measure. There are those of us who believe that an increase in human knowledge is fundamentally a force for good and can be made to be so. One of the most trenchant condemnations of that Bill at that time came, I am very happy to say, from Senator Johnson, a member of this party. He described the particular provisions relating to the sale of contraceptives, at column 1257-58, as:

—a libel upon hundreds and perhaps thousands of honest, God-fearing, holy women. It is putting their practice in the same category as brothel-keeping and prostitution.

Very strong words for February, 1934, and not before their time, because the situation which that Bill created at that time is still with us today and was with us for some time afterwards. As late as 1943, in a booklet published under the auspices of the Gaelic Athletic Association, there was again strong reference to the theory of race suicide and advocacy of expulsion, as a penalty, for any foreigner caught marketing or selling contraceptives and the lash for any such criminal fortunate to be an Irish citizen.

We have had over a period of perhaps two decades, from the original introduction of this piece of legislation, an atmosphere which can most fairly be described as hysteria. Then we had a long period during which there was very little discussion about it under any heading at all. Now we have the most recent phase of the argument which can be divided into two: basically, starting at the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies. The first phase of this argument was that from authority. People, including myself—and no doubt Senator Robinson, Senator M.J. O'Higgins and others in this House and on other platforms argued for and against changing the law on the basis of the authorities that we quoted to support our case. We quoted from the Papacy, the Episcopacy, not indeed only of one Church; we quoted from public opinion polls and surveys of one kind and another. This was a strong argument on both sides but it was essentially a rather dry one and did not ultimately meet the needs of the situation. This has now moved into the third and what I hope will be the final phase of the argument, that is not an argument from hysteria or from authority, as such, but one from the real, genuine needs of the situation in which we find ourselves and indeed from the urgency of meeting those needs.

Firstly, I want to deal briefly with the question of urgency. It is true, as Senator Browne has suggested, that there is an urgency about this measure. I suspect it was also true when Senator Browne was first elected to the Oireachtas on 4th February, 1948. I suspect it was also true when Senator Browne was Minister for Health in the inter-Party Government. And it was also true when Senator Robinson and myself, after two years in public life, introduced in 1971 the first Bill to repeal these provisions. Indeed, as Senator Robinson has pointed out, the Bill which Senator Browne subsequently introduced in the Dáil— where it was rather cavalierly treated by the then Fianna Fáil Government —was exactly the same Bill which we had introduced in the House on an earlier occasion. I do not think the credentials of Senator Robinson and myself in a matter of urgency can be impugned.

Indeed one of the ironies of the whole situation is that, had the electorate taken various decisions—and politicians also—we might have had Senator Browne sitting in the seat now occupied by the Minister for Health. We should be very aware of the electorate in this debate because it is they in the last analysis which will make or break us all. When they do so, we will be judged not merely on the accuracy with which we have reflected their convictions but on the honesty and courage with which we have advanced our own. Politics is a two-way process. Politicians have responsibilities to themselves as well as to the electorate.

I would go all the way with Senator Michael O'Higgins when he called for a return to the older form of democracy. I propose to go back to the older form of democracy myself at the next general election. I would have no hesitation in submitting myself to an electorate of the adult franchise on the basis of the views I hold on this and other issues. Indeed, it is pertinent to point out that, both Senator Robinson and myself, since we first proposed this sort of legislation, have already resubmitted ourselves to an electorate and have received an endorsement by that electorate. It is not the full adult franchise electorate but it is one which is characterised by two things: first of all, it is not hugely composed of the type of people who, in opinion survey after opinion survey have repeatedly called for a change in the law, that is, the younger married women; it is certainly not composed of them. Secondly, it is an electorate which is comparatively numerous. Senator Robinson's is less numerous than mine; hers is some 7,500 or 8,000, mine is some 40,000. Senator O'Higgins is not an elected Member of this House; he is a nominated Member of this House. That point is not irrelevant either.

Senator O'Higgins referred, and I know he meant it honestly, to the bravery of the men who had followed the Taoiseach into the lobbies on the contraception vote. Bravery it may well have been. But anyone who has studied the subsequent careers of the then Minister for Education, the then backbencher, Deputy Oliver J. Flanagan, will agree that that bravery has not gone unrewarded.

We are faced with a situation in which there is a need to change the law. I do not state that solely on my own authority. Almost everybody in this House will agree, with different degrees of emphasis, that there is such a need. I should like to quote two very brief passages from what John Kelly, T.D., said in 1974 speaking not indeed about the Bill which the Government had then introduced but about the Bill which it sought to amend and which this Bill also seeks to amend:

I think the 1935 Act represents an altogether excessive incursion into the sphere of individual privacy and individual conscience, and an amendment of that Act, even with possible imperfections of logic or practicality, should be supported by all people, Catholic or Protestant, quite independently of their own religious practice or belief.

He went on to say:

...in my opinion the 1935 Act contains an injustice, the survival of which I could not in conscience support.

I have yet to hear what Professor Kelly would say about our Bill but I would like to think that, as a lawyer, he would not find a great deal wrong with it.

One of the reasons for the need for a change in the law was outlined very succinctly after the McGee case decision by David Nowlan, Medical Correspondent of The Irish Times when he wrote on 20th December, 1973:

It is not hard to imagine how unavailable penicillin would be to the average patient if it were legal to import or manufacture the antibiotic but illegal to sell or promote it. Pharmacists would be a rare breed indeed if they were to make available from their chemist shops items which they could not sell.

That is the situation in a nutshell created by the McGee case. It is the situation which we are all, to some extent, responsible for having failed to face up to.

The need can be described in more detail and under three simple headings. The first is the obvious need to provide the means and information whereby people in Ireland can control their own fertility. In the past we have had several mechanisms for controlling fertility. The most obvious of these was emigration and another equally obvious one was late marriage or indeed celibacy outside the priesthood and religious orders. A third of the men born in Ireland in 1900 never got married at all, a figure one can compare with that in other countries which was as low as 10 per cent. There has been an enormous tradition of late marriage, of no marriage and of emigration as a form of population control in this country. I would stress the emigration one because, when I listened to Senator O'Higgins talking about emigration as the great and generous gesture by Ireland and the Catholic Irish towards spreading the faith in other countries, I found myself asking myself how he could seriously advance this thesis in ignorance or being unwitting of the enormous, savage human and social tragedy that continued emigration has caused this country. It was almost—and I know it was genuine—a lyrical paean of praise to the Irish emigrant. If one asks the Irish emigrant one will not get that kind of response. I emigrated for a very brief period. It was an emigration which was economically very much better cushioned than the emigration of many other people of the same age as myself who went abroad at the same time. I can assure the House it was not a pleasant experience. I was glad to be able to come back, unlike many others who are unable to come back or who have died abroad, very many of them in the earlier years of this century in conditions of terrifying and shocking deprivation and hardship.

In the past here we have connived at emigration as a form of population control. We need no further evidence than the report of the Commission on Emigration which assumed blandly and I daresay hypocritically that we could, and should, stem emigration within a context in which the growth of family size would be unchecked and, at a stroke, provide all the necessary jobs and employment to keep these people at home. It is ironic that many of the people who might oppose a change in this law are also people who are particularly anxious and active in the need to get jobs for our school leavers. I yield to nobody in my determination that our school leavers should have jobs and that we should have an economic system which would provide them with the jobs that they need. But we cannot have it both ways. We cannot talk interminably about the need for jobs and irresponsibly refuse to make available to people the means by which they can control their own fertility.

The second main area of need is that it is about time we did something about the, I believe, frightening over-medication of our society. Senator Quinlan said we should not go headlong into the pill business. I have news for Senator Quinlan—we are in it already. We have an extraordinarily high degree of medication in our society. Whether it is the contraceptive pill administered, by prescription, to women who do not actually want to have children or whether it is the tranquilliser pills which are administered to women who, for one reason or another have children—perhaps children they may not originally have wanted—we are dealing with a situation in which there is a semipermanent serious over-medication of one of the most vital and vulnerable sectors of our society, the women of child-bearing age. This is why it is so absolutely essential that we should provide alternative, safe, reliable, ethical means of allowing these women to control their own fertility without recourse to the over-medication I have been speaking of. Dr. Patrick Crowley in Kilkenny, a member of the Fine Gael Party, has been trying for quite some time to get the health board in his area to provide the necessary appliances on the basis that there are so many people for whom the contraceptive pill is medically contraindicated. They are poor, and even if they were not, they still could not use it. If we refuse to change the law in this area we are condemning people in this position—and there are many of them—to abstinence, or serious illness and perhaps even to death. It may be argued that hard cases make bad law but these are the cases which should help us to make the law in this situation.

The third major need is for information. It is not enough—Senator O'Higgins, as a lawyer might have adverted to this in his speech—to have a right existing without being able to let the people know that it does exist. Rights do not exist to be abstract. If they do they are rarely available. That is why we must amend, in a responsible fashion, the legislation relating to publications and advertisements of the availability of contraceptives. The sections in the Bill which relate to that are responsible and sober and should get the agreement of all sides of the House. One of the reasons for this is that many of the family planning services in this country do not go any major part of the way towards meeting the need. They are situated only in the cities. Therefore, they discriminate against people in rural areas. Of course they cost money as well. This is why I believe many aspects of our Bill have relevance and importance.

Senator O'Higgins referred to what he believed to be the dangers of some aspects of the Bill. I shall refer only to his belief that an abortifacient could be protected and used in this country if it gained the protection of this Bill by being described as a contraceptive. This is simply not the case and it is misleading to say it is. The most recent Government measure with its explicit statement on abortifacients did not actually change in the slightest respect the amount of protection available to the unborn child in our society either under the Offences Against the Person Act or under the 1937 Constitution. Those protections remain and there is no way in which this Bill could ever remove those protections.

A notable exception I am afraid to the responsible and mature debate which has, I believe, been evolving in this country during the past three or four years has been the largest political party in these islands, Fianna Fáil. On 1st June, 1972 the then Minister for Health, Mr. Erskine Childers, said that the contraceptive pill was being prescribed on a steadily increasing basis by doctors, Catholic and Protestant, in the South of Ireland, that the ultimate implication of this trend could not be disregarded indefinitely. Fianna Fáil as a Government did not have much more time to disregard those particular implications but they did disregard them and they have continued to disregard them.

In drafting this Bill we have taken the fullest possible account of the only positive suggestions that were made by Fianna Fáil spokesmen during any of these debates and those are the suggestions that were made by Deputy O'Malley during the debate on the Government Bill in the other House. As reported at column 314 of Volume 274 of the Dáil Official Report, he said:

Let the health boards under responsible public control deal with this problem—and undoubtedly it is a problem for a large number of individuals, particularly women. Let them deal with the matter in a responsible way, not with any profit motive built in as there is with the 1,500 or 2,000 retail outlets proposed in the Bill. Let the health boards deal with the matter in a non-commercial, responsible fashion. If they see fit to do so, let them set up clinics to supply contraceptives to people who are advised by their doctors or the health board doctors that it is necessary that they have them. They will ensure that only married people get them, something this Bill cannot ensure, notwithstanding its commendable effort— on the face of it—to confine the sale of contraceptives to married people.

If health board clinics operate a system, if they are exempted from a ban on importation, supply, distribution and sale if necessary at cost price, surely everyone can be happy.

We have taken this challenge and we have built a responsible reply to it into our Bill but what do we find? We find the Fianna Fáil Party are still sitting on the fence on this issue. They have argued that they will change the law if and when they come back to power. They have not had the courage to tell us how and perhaps not even when. In their words, they remind me of nobody more than St. Augustine and his prayer to the Lord to make him chase, but not yet.

Dr. Browne

I must say that Senator Horgan's intervention was something of an antidote to the positive state of desolation I felt at the conclusion of the contributions of his two predecessors, Senators Quinlan and O'Higgins in their contribution to this legislation. I found it difficult to believe that I was listening to such extraordinary effusions from people in this day and age. Senator Horgan dealt briefly in passing with my intervention in recent weeks on this issue and I think he was slightly irritated, as, of course, was Senator Robinson. I should say briefly that my intention was to try to get this issue debated here as soon as possible for the obvious reasons which they have indeed dealt with in their speeches. I am in the dilemma: as a person I do not consider it a dilemma but a great privilege to be an Independent Senator from Trinity College, Dublin, but I have a peculiarly prudish attitude to party discipline. This may come as a surprise to people: I either accept party discipline or I do not. I do not happen to have the Labour Party Whip. If Senators consult other more long-standing members of the Labour Party they will find I have never approached any member of the Labour Party asking him to do anything which would help me in my position as an Independent Senator because I respect their right to behave as they wish as members of the Labour Party under the Party Whip.

I should be permitted, I think, to refer to a report which was published in The Irish Times yesterday of what I said here in my intervention. I was reported as having shouted across the House “You are a bunch of hypocrites.” The Official Report will show that I did not say that and what I did say was “You protest surprise that the north must be bombed into a united Ireland. You are hypocrites all of you. When did this cease to be a matter of urgency?” That is somewhat different but it is one of the misfortunes of my life as a politician to be portrayed deliberately or otherwise as a very strident person, making ugly interventions, when in fact I do not do that. I attempt to the best of my ability to deal with matters as reasonably as I can in the context of the situation in which I found myself.

Senator Horgan gave us a very interesting glimpse into the debate in 1935. This was distressing in many ways because it showed such little apparent change since 1935—a period of 40 years. He did not, however, deal with another piece of history which is rather important. I refer to the short period in which I was Minister for Health when I think it is generally agreed many changes took place in the Department of Health. In particular there were my attempts to introduce what was known as the mother-and-child scheme. That interestingly enough was not my Bill and I never claimed credit for it. It was the Bill introduced by a Fianna Fáil Minister for Health, Mr. MacEntee. Section 21 of Part III of that Bill said that we should see that the health boards established agencies to safeguard the health of women in respect of motherhood and for their education in that respect. That was taken by the Hierarchy of the time to be an attempt by me, or an attempt by Mr. MacEntee, to introduce this whole question of contraception, abortion, euthanasia, family planning and so on. I was accused of the lot in the subsequent debacle when the Government, as Senator Horgan may recall, were brought down as a result of their failure to go ahead with the implementation of that mother-and-child scheme. The intervention feared most then is the self-same intervention which they fear now, the Hierarchy. This is not funny. Some attempt has been made to treat it as something which is very funny. Indeed, it is not and Senator Horgan is right to relate it to the appalling human misery which is involved in this problem. I speak now as both a politician and a psychiatrist. All of my professional life as a psychiatrist is probably involved in dealing with the end products and the kind of cultural attitudes, social attitudes which I see all around me. It is a very serious issue indeed. I welcome the Minister for Health here but I must point out to both Senators Robinson and Horgan that our Labour Minister for Health has been Minister for Health for three or four years now, that he had behind him the authority of our conference to produce some kind of family planning scheme but that he has not done so. Further, this is the third or fourth week in which we have met this winter. We had very little business on some of the days so it seemed to me to be reasonable to ask why this Bill on our Order Paper was not being taken and to point out that it should not be a matter which had to be referred to any party before it was taken as the business of this House but that there should have been a decision as to whether to take it, irrespective of what any individual may think or may have thought.

Senator Horgan referred to the shadow Minister for Health, Deputy O'Malley, who talked about letting the health boards deal with this matter in a responsible way. Quite right. Why not? Why not ask the Minister for Health why this has not been done? If private voluntary groups in various parts of the country—in some of them as we have seen in Galway, under great stress and covert pressures of one kind or another—can carry out and provide this humanitarian service, why cannot our Minister and Tánaiste, the Leader of our party, mandated by conference, carry out Deputy O'Malley's advice and, indeed, Senator Horgan's advice to him? Why can we not have the health boards facilitating this doctor in Kilkenny in providing this desperately needed service? Having this matter debated again justifies the way in which I have had to press for it to be taken, even with some unintended discourtesies.

It is also worth remembering that we gave the Minister for Health the courtesy of accepting his engagement in the discussions on the Misuse of Drugs Bill Special Committee, as a reason for his not being available. I seriously believe that he should have made himself available at the next earliest opportunity after that courtesy had been extended to him by the House.

I experience, understandably, an overwhelming inertia at the prospect of attempting to persuade my fellow Senators of the need to support this Bill. This has all been said so many times. The case has been made clearly and frequently. One wonders what one has to do in order to persuade them that this is a question of the humanitarian need for people. The Bill is also a particularly important facet of civil rights of women. We had this dreadful attitude of men down through the centuries in which we have used women indiscriminately for our pleasure and the end product, or the by-product, is the unfortunate, unwanted child. For the first time in the history of man, this need not be the continuing pattern in our society. Women must be accorded this right of deciding whether they will bear a child. Possibly the most distressing phenomenon of the whole psychiatric practice is the unwanted children of the overcrowded home or the young person with the illegitimate child. As the lawyers among us will know, these are the children who grow up, in so many cases, to end up in the courts, to end up in our jails, prisons and reformatories, unloved, unwanted and rejected by society.

It is no good saying that special cases make bad law. What I am talking of is happening on an enormous scale. Senator Horgan rightly referred to the dreadful rejection of the emigrant ship. Anybody who has read the Commission on Emigration Report which refers to the terrible escalation in the numbers of emigrants—16,000, 18,000, 24,000, 40,000, one in three having to emigrate—will understand what I am talking of. These poor people, as Senator Horgan said, went out, not as advantaged as himself or myself, but with little else but their bare hands to make a living. They were the coolie labour of Britain, the British Empire and elsewhere. It is all very well to talk about the need for respect for the attitudes of a particular church or to say that this is all done in the preservation of the common good. That has not been so for too many of our people. We know well that in our society in the last 50 years, as soon as it was possible, the middle income and wealthy groups were quite careless about the common good on this particular issue. The average middle-class, wealthy or upper-class family—if you like to call them that—was the two- to four-size family and it was the working-class family that was left illiterate in these regards and left completely unprotected to breed, to have enormous families in which there could not be a division of the care, the understanding and the love of the mother no matter how hard she might try to share herself out among them.

I believe I was correct when I said that there was a very big element of hypocrisy in our society, not only in regard to other matters but particularly in relation to the subject we are discussing. These people who believe that this issue is important from the point of view of their religious beliefs—and, of course, they have every right, whether they are Jewish, Protestant or Catholic, as have their bishops and teachers to preach anything they wish—should realise also that there are sequels to the acceptance of the indiscriminate breeding of the human animal in society and that these sequels have been neglected. In the first instance the wealthy and middle class, for as long as I have known the situation anyway, could buy their way out of the need to have further children. Nowadays they do it by means of the pill. They are able to pay the doctor to give them the pill. Many doctors in public practice will not give the pill but they will give it if it is paid for. In the past these people have been able to get contraceptives from outside the country. The result of that has been that they were able to preach a kind of celibate life to other people when they themselves had no intention of practising it.

Think of our attitude to the illegitimate child, to his legal position. If we were serious on these issues, surely our lawyers and our legislators would have said "We will show the world". If Senator Quinlan and Senator O'Higgins were serious about this concept of a society which must behave itself in a particular way, in the way of the Catholic social teaching on these issues, let us accept that as a hypothesis. What have we done then? Senator Horgan has already said we forced emigration on one-third of our people, we exported them virtually illiterate. We did not care what happened to them. What did we do to our laws in relation to illegitimacy? Have we made it easy for the child—the bastard—of the unmarried mother? What have we done for the unmarried mother? What have we done about the child who is put away in these institutions? He suffers emotionally and socially. In the years I am talking about there were 30, 40, 50 and sometimes 100 or more such children. Then they were placed in the care of people, many of whom were religious. Many of these are wonderful people. They are humane and kindly people but many of whom were very disturbed and who went into religious orders because they themselves had their own hang-ups about sex. Some of those people looked on these little ones as being in some way the victims of the badness of the mothers and treated them accordingly. These are the children I have found myself dealing with —children who are lectured in the courts for being drug addicts or alcoholics or for fighting when what they are telling society is that they hate it. They had a right to hate a society which treated them in that way.

I am old enough to remember the question of adoption. Adoption is a dreadful experience for a mother. It is all very well to say the child is properly brought up and is well cared for but as one of my medical colleagues said to me—and he is an unemotional person who deals with this sort of situation all the time—when these people come to give away their children it is a traumatic experience for them. Should these children be born to go into adoption with all the consequences of that and to be left to ask the questions, "Who is my mother?""Who is my father?" These are the children who are unhappy and insecure, who become drug addicts, alcoholics and so on.

Adoption can be a wonderful thing in certain circumstances. I recall General Seán McEoin coming back from a Cabinet meeting and telling us that the Government of the day would not allow adoption. That attitude has changed and this is the point I was trying to make to Senator O'Higgins. Some of what we were forbidden to do a little while ago has become permissible today, but meanwhile how much suffering was caused by the frequently savage and barbaric attitude to humanity on the part of clerics, or bishops or the Hierarchy generally throughout the years? How much suffering there was until Gerry Boland brought in an Adoption Bill and succeeded in having it accepted. That is why I do not accept the diktat of these people. They can change. This was well emphasised for me when I asked a theologian who was talking on these lines, why something which was a mortal sin say, 30 years ago, is no longer a mortal sin? This good man said to me that that is what is called the changing word in the changing world. How facile, how easy?

I take Senator Robinson's criticism of my own profession. It is justified. Quite often I try to encourage members of the profession to take a position in which they intervene on these matters. I do not claim for one moment that we know we are infallible in any way. It is simply that we deal with these matters more than most other people, with the possible exception of her own profession. Unfortunately, it seems to me that we are the products of our culture and as a body we are nearly as frightened as the politicians of differing from the members of the Hierarchy. The truth is that when a person in authority takes up a position of silence and does not speak about what he considers to be wrong, he is taking up a political position. It is politics because he is condoning what he sees by being silent.

One of the commonest fears of women, in my experience, in the Dublin working class areas is the fear of another pregnancy. It is called all sorts of things. There are all sorts of psychiatric names for it, but that is what it boils down to. It leads to an enormous amount of unhappiness and so frequently to the break up of the marriage.

In the pursuit of Senator O'Higgins's idea that we should have unlimited numbers of children, as I said, at practically no level have we made any serious attempt to deal with the demands of that kind of decision in human terms in regard to the common good. Could I dismiss that thesis out of hand by giving one simple figure? If you are all seriously concerned—those of you who make the laws—for the common good, why is it that you allow the continuation of a society in which a tiny 5 per cent of the population own 75 per cent of the wealth? Why is not all that wealth distributed over all the people? Or in the sense of this case, why is it that it is only among working class people that one gets the serious tragic consequences of these social attitudes in relation to family planning?

Even on the question of having children, we have made no attempt whatever to understand the proper relationships between adult and child, either in the home, or in the schools. In the whole adult/child nexus in our society there is a relationship of fear based on punishment. A child is fearful of his parents, fearful of the teacher, fearful of his God, fearful of going to hell. He is brought up in an atmosphere in which there is a completely didactic approach. He is not allowed to think for himself. Two and two are always four, never five, never three. There is a punitive relationship between children and adults. On the whole question of educational methodology, we have done little or nothing, and certainly no serious pioneering work in relation to it. We have simply uttered these pious platitudes about trying to preserve the common good and then walked away from the consequent morass of human suffering caused by that kind of attitude. We have the highest bed occupancy of mental hospitals in the world and among the highest alcoholism rates in the world. We are all to varying degrees responsible for this. I do my colleagues the credit of believing that they know this just as well as I do. What is it that prevents them from having the courage to stand up on this issue?

I have mentioned the figure of the abortions. I was told I was in favour of abortion. I am sure Senator Robinson will not want me to bring in this subject but it was referred to by Senator Quinlan. We have this incidence of young girls—what is it? 10,000 or 11,000 I think is the figure—going to England for abortion, the highest in the Common Market. This is common figure finding in relation to Catholic countries. In the United States, the percentage of Catholic girls going for abortion is much higher than in relation to the Jewish or the Protestant religions.

Abortion, too, is a dreadful experience for a girl but it is not a matter which I think should properly be discussed here now. I am prepared to discuss it at any time, but it does not arise. It is wrong of Senators hostile to this proposal to introduce this very emotive subject in order to colour their arguments and sway the attitudes of people by impugning attitudes or proposals which are simply not included in the Bill.

Senator Quinlan's reference to the natural methods and Senator O'Higgins's reference to the natural law carry no weight whatever because, if we accept that the natural law applies to medicine, surgery, psychiatry, then we must assume that these same medical approaches, when they prolong or enhance the life of a woman, are perfectly in order. Surely when we feel something is going to kill a person or damage a woman emotionally, we have a right to interfere with our medical experience and knowledge.

The truth is, of course, that we men had a wonderful time for a very long time where women are concerned. We have decided what is good for them in all cases. We have decided that they like having children, that they like motherhood, that they like married life and parenthood, and being housewives. This is not true, and can be shown to be not true in scientific terms. In the past because of the high incidence of infantile mortality and disease and death rates, and a sort of a natural movement on the part of natural order, many children were born and then just enough survived to keep the world going. Very great changes have taken place in relation to the development of the nuclear family and the persistence of this whole idea of the family is now under question in many societies in many countries. In the modern mobile industrial society women in the home are being subjected to what to them are terrifying pressures to which many of them succumb in the form of somatic manifestations of neurotic illnesses, consultations with psychiatrists or, indeed, suicide.

It can be shown that the married woman without children is much happier than the married woman with children. The myth of the happily married woman looking after her children is one I believe has been perpetuated over the years by the all-male psychologists who dominated our profession during those years. The figure for expressions of happiness goes from something like 17 per cent for the lady between 18 and 29 years of age, married with no children, down to 3 per cent for the married lady of the same age with children, and the more children she has the more unhappy she is. A survey of a cohort of middle-aged women showed that to get satisfaction out of being housewifes takes between ten and 15 years. There is a very high occupational hazard in being a married woman with children from the psychological point of view, crowding, isolation, and the ambivalence many of them have about wanting to go out to work.

I do not think Senator O'Higgins was right to dismiss the implications of the North-South position. Those of us who put forward that point of view are nearly always accused of simply saying that the Northerners want contraception and, if they get that, there will be a united Ireland. They must know that this is not so. This is not the case any of us have ever made. What we do say is that, in regard to what Senator O'Higgins calls the common good, what we are concerned with is the common good in a pluralist society. Senator Robinson made the case that this is simply a permissive law. It permits people who wish to plan their families to do so by the most modern method, and it equally permits those who believe, as Senator O'Higgins and Senator Quinlan do, to behave according to their religious beliefs, which is perfectly correct and which any of us would accept.

The point about the North-South position, of course, is that the case which they made very clearly and very honestly is that because this happens to be the teaching of the Catholic Church it should be incorporated into our law. Therefore canon law becomes civil law. Now, you can hold that view if you want to. I think it is terribly wrong even if we did not have this North-South question at all. People who do not share Senator O'Higgins's beliefs in the infallibility of whatever he is told by his Hierarchy or by his Pope—and, as he said himself, there are priests and also members of his own congregation who do not share these views about the infallibility of the bishops and the Pope on this particular issue—are denied a right in order to achieve what Senator O'Higgins calls the securing of the common good. That is amongst Catholics, but even more forcibly it applies where the non-Catholics are concerned, the Jew, the various Churches, Presbyterian, Methodist, Church of Ireland and those other members of our community who surely must be conceded the right to carry on their lives in the way their religious teachings dictate to them, or those people who have no religion at all.

It is particularly naïve for Senator O'Higgins to say the simple issue is that the Northern Protestant would not compromise on his principles and the Southern Catholic should not be asked to compromise on his principles. That is not the issue. The issue is—and since my very earliest introduction to public life this is the one issue above all others which has dominated my political attitude—the supremacy of the Houses of the Oireachtas. It is as simple as that. Whatever the Dáil and the Seanad may do, we accept their decision as the decision of the electorate expressed through these Houses. There should be no extra-parliamentary pressure group with a right to interfere with these decisions, whether it is the legal profession, or the medical profession, or the clerics, or any particular religious, industrial or other group outside. We have the right to go to the country with our political views and seek election and, having been elected, each of us must accept that view.

To the Northern Protestant whatever about the virtues of being a member of our community, its high unemployment, at one time its emigration, the dreadful level of social services, housing, transport, practically anything you mention, are very unattractive from their point of view. Scholarships, schools, school methodology are all unattractive, but if you put in with that the fact that minorities are treated in this cavalier way by the Catholics, then quite obviously it strengthens the Northern Protestant bigot who, for his own reasons, possibly nothing to do with serious religious reasons at all, decides that he can use this as a case against unity, a case against rapprochement between the people of the North and the South.

All of us must know in our hearts that we must eliminate these very obvious differences created by us if we are serious about trying to help in this terrible problem of the conflict in our country at present. These are the kind of decisions to which Senator O'Higgins referred in the Taoiseach's decision. The Taoiseach cannot simply be treated as somebody who was a brave man going into the "Níl" lobby against his own Minister for Health. It had a shattering effect on the people of the North. Their fears are continually being reinforced that this society is one which is still very much afraid of its druids, its priests, its bishops. If they are to preserve their conscientious rights, their civil rights, in our society, surely they would be out of their minds to join with the leaders of the Protestant churches down here who are dismissed in the cavalier way, in which they have been dismissed both here in this House by the Senators who have spoken and, more important still, by this Government and their predecessors, not only in relation to contraception but also, of course, in relation to divorce.

It is not that these religions tend to need more sex than the rest of us do, or that they tend to get divorced more frequently than we do. Recently Fr. Good gave it as his opinion that the breakdown in Irish marriages—and this would be on all fours with my own experience in psychiatry—is about one in four. When will we get over the idea in the Republic that we are a special people, that we do not have these ordinary human needs and human failings, and that it is impossible for the law to legislate against these kind of things happening and that it is not the function of the law makers to legislate on these kind of issues?

As I said before, obviously I would welcome the Bill as it is if it were accepted. I am glad to see it. No doubt, as time goes on, we can improve it. I do not share the belief that contraceptives should be made available only to families. As Senator Robinson said, it would be impossible to ensure this anyway in practical terms, even if it were constitutionally permissible. I would nearly go so far as to say it is unmarried young girls who need to have access to contraceptive facilities because they are the people to whom, above all other people outside marriage, children should not be born. This emphasises my main concern which is the position of the unwanted child. Whatever may happen to the unwanted child in the big family, the unwanted child to the youngster, the young adolescent finding out about sex for the first time disastrously, has virtually no prospect of happiness.

I agree that the sending of unsolicited advertisements should not be tolerated. I would say that in relation to any unsolicited advertisements for anything. In relation to educational booklets, pamphlets and leaflets, I would be in favour of their getting the very widest circulation. I would be the last to argue the old case of the disastrous consequences of uncontrolled human development and birth in any society, but leaving aside religious, social and cultural implications, the implications in terms of a country bursting at the seams with young human beings for whom we cannot find work, or outlets for their energies and other activities, you would imagine the fact that emigration to England has virtually stopped would be at least one compelling argument which would make our legislators reconsider their attitudes.

I am sorry Fianna Fáil have decided not to support this Bill. To some extent I sympathise with them. The Minister for Health is here and he is a Labour man. It is difficult to see why he cannot carry out the functions which are open to him to carry out and, therefore, accepting the responsibility of Government. The case might be made that the changes brought about by the McGee case are now so urgent that the Government should act and should bring in this kind of legislation themselves and not as a Private Members' Bill. It is unfortunate that a party such as the Fianna Fáil Party, with their own record of concern in relation to social legislation stretching back to the 1947 Health Act, cannot give some indication of their attitude.

Senator O'Higgins said it is not our job to give leadership. I do not agree with him. It is our job to give leadership here. We are specialists to some extent in the consideration of these kind of problems. Our job is to wonder about them, to discuss them, to consider them, to read about them, to learn about them, to study them and then, out of our wisdom, or lack of it, to do our best to bring forward proposals for the betterment of the life of the community as a whole. We have done this on many occasions whereas, if we held a referendum and asked whether we could do something it would not have been carried in the country for various reasons. Most of the social legislation of Fianna Fáil— the old age pensions, the widows' and orphans' pensions, wet time insurance, slum clearance, free schools, and so on—was opposed mostly as a result of the influence of the clerics at the time. But Fianna Fáil gave leadership and we made the limited advances that we have made over those years.

What we do here will be damaging. If this Bill is badly defeated, it will do the damage I would have thought Fianna Fáil would have been concerned with because of their protestations of republicanism over the years and their anxiety to help unite our people. This is one way in which an indication could be sent to the people in the North that we were beginning to emerge in a respectful way from the overweening power of the Catholic Church in Ireland over the years.

I am glad to belong to the Labour Party because of its stand on this question and I hope that the Minister will support us in our stand. It is not one which can be blamed on the oil crisis, it is something which can be done. If we are the only party seen to support this legislation, it will inevitably have a damaging effect in Northern Ireland. Nobody would do anything willingly, in the terrible state in which the North is at present, to exacerbate the situation there or fail to do something which might, to some degree, reduce the pressures on people there who are trying to find their way to peace and unity.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

Despite the impressive, sincere and well-reasoned speech by Senator Michael O'Higgins in regard to this Bill, putting his own position extremely well, I will support the Bill. Perhaps it would be noted, as one of the marks of this party of which I am a member, that we do not find any difficulty in disagreeing in public on matters that are important to those who disagree. We do not take whips to be silent on a matter of very great importance such as would appear to have been administered to the Fianna Fáil Party today, who have elected to be silent and largely absent.

The Bill introduced by Senator Robinson is capable of amendment to meet the sort of views I hold and which require me to adopt formally my own position and express it in the House. I do not intend speaking at the same length as on the previous occasion when this matter was debated or in the same detail in which I stated my position then.

Senator Browne, who has now left the House, mounted a considerable attack on the tradition—I am not talking about the narrow party-political tradition—of the historic, Catholic people of Ireland in the course of his speech. I am proud to be of that tradition and I do not think that the pride I have in it or the acceptance I express of adherence to the doctrines of the Church involve me in occupying the position which Senator O'Higgins expressed today. Indeed, he missed a point of very great importance, that is, that the rational teachings of that Church, and they are only compulsory on a member of that body if they are acceptable to his reason, are that Church and State are separate; that the Church does not invade and should not through its Hierarchy or its clerics attempt to invade the area which it is the duty and responsibility of legislators, whether they are Christian or not, Catholic or not, to rule.

The issue seems to me extremely simple. It is rather daunting to think that this simple issue, most clearly expounded in the judgment of the McGee case, now almost at its third anniversary, should have defeated the efforts of the democratic parties elected to these two Houses to solve. The issue is this, everybody knows it but it is no harm to repeat it—it was never the law that it was a crime to use a contraceptive; it was never the law that it was a crime to manufacture a contraceptive. It was the law, until the McGee case, that it was a crime to import a contraceptive. It remains a crime to sell a contraceptive. For three years, we have looked at that simple matter and have made a political football of it which has damaged the reputation of all the political parties and damaged and reduced the respect which the people should have in the political parties they elect. Respect will be necessary if this democracy is to survive. A small, simple Bill is all that is required to put this out of court.

All sorts of peripheral questions arise. For example, should importation be permitted for sale or for use or should it be confined to married people and so on? If we were concerned to govern our country well this issue would long since have been rolled under the carpet because an all-party committee should have been established to work out a solution. It is the cost, in terms of the reputation of the institutions of the State which worries me more than anything else, our inability to cope with a relatively simple matter—our inability to do that which is not at all to deny at the end of the day that there might be people on either side of the House who could not conscientiously accept the solution.

If there is any combination of words to describe my political position—it is, I suppose, what sounds a total contradiction—I am a progressive conservative. I want to conserve what is good but I want to clean up a lot of tawdry messes and inefficiencies that are not worth conserving. This is one of them. I see very little difficulty in doing this if political parties did not, in some cases, lack courage and in other cases would restrain themselves from trying to exploit a situation to their advantage, but at the cost of the future strength of this State to cope with its economic and social problems. Some of these problems have been referred to and most were attributed to the Catholic Hierarchy as if the Catholic Hierarchy had been administering the Industrial Development Authority over the last 30 years, as if the Catholic Hierarchy had determined agricultural policy in the first ten years of the country. Did the Catholic Hierarchy introduce protection in the thirties? What had the Catholic Hierarchy to do with the mistakes of this House? Nothing, save in so far as it is influencing into erected silence one of the main parties in the State on this small issue.

I see, as was recognised by Senator Robinson in her excellent introduction, that there is always a difficulty, when Parliament makes a mistake such as that made in 1935 when it introduced the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act and put in this section. There is always the difficulty when something that is constituted to crime that should never have been constituted to crime, is removed from the Statute Book as a criminal offence. It will be taken by the people as being an encouragement of the activity which was wrongly designated a crime. That problem is there. My view is quite clear. Its removal will have a cost and will have certain encouragements. This is prescinding the whole question as to the propriety of the use of contraceptives. I will not burden the House with my views on the conscientious questions that can arise with regard to that.

There is something in the hierarchical view as expressed a few years ago in the domino theory: if we do this the next thing we will have is a movement for abortion. When we have done that, we will have a movement for euthanasia. I am sure the "Gay Libs." will be in at some stage depending on the degree of the potency of the force they can arouse in support of their claim. This will follow when this is put right but right it has to be put. I do not mind being the laughing stock of Europe if we are doing what we think is right. I object to being the laughing stock of Europe when we are doing what is wrong. We should remove ourselves from that position in this matter. The only way it can be done is for the parties to put it outside politics and say: "This is all nonsense. Let us get a solution to it. Let us work out a solution between ourselves and then present it to the people for approval or rejection."

With regard to the domino theory my answer to Senator O'Higgins on that is that we will deal with each of these issues as they come up. We are a rational people and capable of making the necessary distinctions. If abortion was the next issue, I am sure the abortionists would have read the McGee case where the judgment has already found that abortion would be unconstitutional. It was not at the heart of the judgment but an obiter in the judgment in that particular matter. It is arguable that, in any case, it is an entirely different matter because there is a third party involved. We had the same thing with regard to the unfortunate Labouchere amendment which led to the homosexual laws. It is probably right to say that the Wolfenden Report which led to the removal of that probably did encourage homosexual practices. People were probably encouraged into this type of activity whose abnormality was not so structured to determine this kind of activity.

I should like to make my position clear. I think it should be family but not necessarily in the definition of Christian family or even registered family. If people have any permanent association it would be an interference with their rights to prevent them obtaining these artificial articles, as I think they will be—the pill seems to be coming under some cloud. The whole question is extremely difficult when one gets into the whole area of private morality and law. In general there is an historical dimension to be looked at in relation to individual practice. States in general ought to be concerned with the quality of life.

It does matter, ultimately, for the State apart from themselves whether people are drunk every night or not, or are libertines chasing after the opposite sex. This will not make them happier people or make for an enduring society. From that point of view, in framing our legislation and reforms, we should quite triumphalistically take the position that the Irish family has been, so far from coming under the kind of criticism that Senator Browne made, a value in Irish life, has been a strength and source of charity for its members and for the wider family network. It has been a system of mutual help and perpetuation of a good thing which should be preserved.

When one is laying down what can or cannot be done one will always have a hard case. In relation to the present position, there is the question of civil rights. I am not concerned particularly that a certain group of judges on a particular day decided that this was a civil right. They could be wrong and have sensibly held previously that they are open to reverse their decisions. I am not particularly concerned about their finding on that matter. One must think in terms of the world we live in now. There are a lot of people who feel it is their civil right. They justifiably feel that whether they sin or they do not is their business and not the business of prosecutors provided, as Mrs. Paddy Campbell said, they do not do it in the streets and frighten the horses. If they keep it to their bedrooms and do not disturb the neighbours, then that is a matter of civil right.

Viewing it from a theological point of view, we will assume for the purpose of the argument that God exists. He is referred to in the Constitution. God did make men free and did not compel them to live a good life, did make it open to them to live badly and society should be perfectly clear about that. That is the way Jefferson saw it and that is the way the American Constitution was built up and that is the way it is in Vatican II. Some of the messages we get from Rome may be slow in reaching us. I will not say they are slow in reaching the remote parts of Ireland because they seem to reach the remote parts of Ireland more quickly than they reach the metropolis. The messages we receive from Rome indicate a great ability to receive new insights to adapt itself in terms of new psychological discoveries. For example, we had a recent allegation which I thought unfortunate from a leader of one of the minority churches with regard to nullity. You can say what you like about the nullity law. That is another matter. But to say that we were being sectarian because we were taking advantage of the only institution which continued to absorb new knowledge I think this is frightful nonsense. The Church of Rome does not, unfortunately, rule the home. If the Church of Rome ruled the home we would not have this debate at all. It is absolutely clear that it is the duty of the Legislature to decide these matters and that all our citizens have these rights, whether they choose to exercise them or not, whether they reject Humanae Vitae or accept it, whether they think it is just about as good as its argument and no better. Whatever their view may be on that, they have rights and this law is depriving them of rights and is unjust because of that reason and there are lots of cases of hardship. I think Senator Browne is right.

By the way, five per cent do not own 75 per cent of the wealth of Ireland; that is a thesis of a most doubtful character, being so doubtful in character it is repeated dogmatically about every third day in the newspapers in Ireland, being so doubtful it is made a secular dogma that cannot ever be questioned. Despite the fact that that proposition is doubtful I think the middle classes, the people with the ability to travel, the people who can make their arrangements, have never been bothered by this at all. That minority have not been particularly vociferous. But there are cases of hardship. There are the problems of urbanisation pressing in on people. There is the increasing inability with the tensions of the modern world, in cities particularly, to cope with and rear satisfactorily happy children. I think a lot of these people are now quite convinced, some of them may not be convinced morally about it at any rate, that they need the assistance of some system of limiting fertility. It should be a crime to make it difficult for them to obtain what they need, whether they need it to sin with or to do good with is a matter not of the law's business. It ought not to be part of the law to have it so. I do not think I want to add very much more to what I have said on this.

On the Bill I would have thought it capable of being amended to satisfy my particular needs. I think that Senator O'Higgins' criticisms of it, for example the idea that if we had the money to provide these facilities to help clinics, there would be some impropriety in taxing people to spend it in this way. Is all that the Government spends its money on to be faulted on the basis that someone thinks that some of the activities any Government spends its money on are immoral in some form or other? If you get me the Book of Estimates I am sure I can easily dig out quite a number of cases where expenditure is in fact incurred which fills me with moral wrath of a high kind. Is it possible to argue that I am not required to pay taxes merely because I feel morally enraged that money is being spent on some useless project which is damaging to the blasted country and holding back its progress in all sorts of fields? I would simply say that the second member of the Fine Gael Party to have spoken has taken a slightly different position from the first one.

Mr. Lyons

I do not intend to delay the House very long. Our time anyhow appears to be running out. Probably most of the people here know the action I took on the occasion on which this Bill was previously before the House. Frankly I intend to support the Bill, with the proviso that has already been put by Senator Alexis FitzGerald that as it goes through and as it is debated, amendments of a worthwhile kind will be made which will guarantee that the Bill does perform the useful things it sets out to do and at the same time is not too wide or too permissive. Of course it is an emotional subject and most people who read the debates and even listen to the idea of family planning have a kind of pornographic titillation by some of the debates which in some ways does not contribute very much to the debate. That is why I hope this will be a very reasoned and rational debate in this House.

Senator Quinlan today was very emphatic that we had arrived at a stage where a control method acceptable to the Catholic Church was in operation and functioning and presumably was something that could not fail; presumably a perfect control. I have read quite a lot about controls of one kind or another and I am afraid I cannot agree with Senator Quinlan that this absolutely effective control by a natural method is functional or indeed can be for some considerable time to come until technology achieves a greater degree of clarity and until medical knowledge of the actual functions of fertility is better known. Again this method mentioned by Senator Quinlan depends on an educated female and a correspondingly educated husband because it is not so simple. In fact there is nothing simple at all about it. The involvement of actually keeping times, temperatures and the other things necessary for control, puts quite a considerable strain on the woman concerned.

Approaching the whole question, it is clear that everybody of all churches and of all religions realises that family planning is necessary otherwise we would not have people agreeing to a natural method as against another method. Once we accept that family planning is necessary and that it is accepted by everybody else, surely what we must do is attempt to ensure that family planning is carried out in the best interests of the people who need it and who wish it and whose conscience allows them to do it. This is what we, as legislators, have to be concerned with.

I was interested in Senator Browne's condemnation of practically everybody in the past for their approach to this matter. I do not blame anybody in the past, brought up in the Catholic tradition, to be chary about changes, seeing that the society in which they were educated, into which they were born, was traditional to them, and the whole nature of sin as applied to sex was there as a barrier against their having further ideas of control or proper ideas of control, indeed, in many cases, a faith which said there was no such thing as control; we will continue to have larger and larger families as long as God gives us the fertility. This was an accepted traditional idea among the Irish people. It is, and will be, extremely difficult to get many people to think, no matter how you educate them today, that this is not a binding tradition on them.

I do not want to pursue that line much further because I might not choose the right words. The reason I speak on this—there are other people far better qualified than I am to research this matter—is that people told me that I had voted for the Bill but was too cowardly to speak on it. I want it to be quite clear that I am not too cowardly to speak on it even though people say "Ah, you would be better off not to because it is dynamite". I do not like grasping dynamite any more than anybody else. I gave a lot of consideration in regard to my attitude to the Bill. I decided I would be, indeed, cowardly if I did not stand up and try to portray my ideas on the matter. I have no difficulty in saying that though the Bill will be amended as it goes through—and there are certain reservations I have about it—I still will vote for it.

Many things were said by Senator Quinlan about attitudes of other people. He condemned the attitudes of other individuals. Indeed, Senator Browne did the same. I would not condemn anybody's attitude in something of this nature. It is each man's own conscience, or woman's conscience, that will tell them exactly what to do. This Bill is most unpopular with certain sections. Some of the documents circulated by people who are against family planning were terrible, disgusting and, I think, pornographic also.

Debate adjourned.

An Cathaoirleach

Before adjourning the House, I should like to wish all the Members the best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. I should like also, on behalf of the Members, to convey to the staff of the Seanad and the staff of Leinster House our thanks for the excellent manner in which they served us during the last session.

The Seanad adjourned at 5 p.m. sine die.

Seanad Éireann debate - Thursday, 16 Dec 1976