Skip to main content
Normal View

Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 4 Mar 1992

Vol. 131 No. 12

Amendment of the Constitution: Motion.

I welcome the Minister to the House. As the debate is ten minutes late starting, it will be carried over to next week.

I move:

That Seanad Éireann, recognising that Article 40.3.3º of the Constitution has served no useful purpose, mindful of the uncertainty of interpretation which resulted in such unnecessary trauma for a young girl and her parents, aware that the ban on certain types of information which has resulted from this Article may endanger the lives of some Irish women, calls on the Government —

(1) to seek all-party support for a referendum to delete Article 40.3.3º from the Constitution, and

(2) to provide a comprehensive counselling, advice and support service for all women in crisis pregnancy situations.

Some people may think that personal publicity for me or Senator Norris is our motive with this motion. The stance I have taken on this issue is of no great benefit to the people I represent and may well harm me electorally; my reasons for moving this motion are not electoral.

We should remember what this discussion is about; I will talk about the amendment later. The discussion is not about abortion per se, though it is related to it. Nor is it about the events of recent weeks, though obviously connected with those, too. Notwithstanding what many of my colleagues in this House, whom I respect, have suggested to me, neither is it about the precise reasons behind the Supreme Court's judgment. We know the decision of the Supreme Court; we are not waiting for it but for the reasons for that decision.

One could discuss the weight in law of the opinions of individual judges on a constitutional matter and whether these opinions are as fundamental as their decision. The reasons for that judgment are a matter of some dispute, but it is not true to say that discussion on this issue is in any way contingent on the reasons behind the Supreme Court decision. Such an allegation would ignore the history of this particular Constitutional provision, its subsequent history, and would be a denial of reality. We are talking about an amendment which since I was elected to this House I have described as wrong, ill-considered and, now as we begin to confront ourselves, self-deceptive. That conclusion is based on accepting the bona fides of the amendment's proponents. If one were less generous to those proponents one could suggest that this amendment has sinister overtones and suggests a position for Irish women which is hurtful to many and not only to women who take a different view to that of many Members of this House on the issue of abortion. The amendment legislates for women's behaviour under a certain set of circumstances which the vast majority of Members of both Houses will never have to experience.

What we could have discussed — and I would have liked views on this — is the process by which a form of words was inserted into our Constitution which was grossly offensive to the Protestant Churches. The debate ten years ago was characterised by a kind of scrabbling around by some people for stray references and quotations from individual members of those Churches as if to deny the evidence. Without wanting to trouble the House too much but in pursuit of my argument, which is that this debate is about something that is wrong with our Constitution, I would like to remind the House what the Church of Ireland said then. I quote from a letter sent on 17 June 1982 to the then Taoiseach and recorded at column 545 of the Seanad Official Report for 4 May 1983:

In our opinion a proposed amendment to the Constitution and a referendum will not alter the human situation as it exists in the country, contribute to its amelioration or promote a responsible and informed attitude to the issue of abortion. We gravely doubt the wisdom of using constitutional prohibitions as a means of dealing with complex moral and social problems.

That was the view of the Church of Ireland. The view of the Council of Social Welfare of the Methodist Church in Ireland was even more explicit. In a statement of 21 January 1983 — and again I quote from the Seanad Official Report, column 547, of 4 May 1983 — they said:

The Methodist Church in Ireland is opposed, (1) to any constitutional amendment on abortion, (2) to this particular amendment and (3) to the holding of a referendum on the matter.

Both spokespeople went on to elaborate. I will quote one brief extract from the statement of the Methodist Church. I am quoting from column 548 of the Seanad Official Report:

It would be especially unfortunate when we seek a society of open understanding for all of Ireland that one part of Ireland should be asked to define itself in this respect as a closed society on conservative, Roman Catholic lines.

One does not have to agree with the Protestant Church or with the non-Roman Churches. I am aware of the sensitivities of many members of the Church of Ireland at being rigidly categorised as Protestant. One does not have to agree with them to realise that this disagreement about a fundamental matter was made on denominational lines. That is the issue, not whether individual Protestants or non-Roman Catholics took different views, but that two Churches — and also the Irish Council of Churches — thought the legislative proposal wrong. If it was wrong then, nothing that has happened since has made it any less wrong.

It is also important to remember that during that debate the practical legal implications of the amendment were teased out and nobody could give precise meanings to certain provisions in the English language but especially in the Irish language. The phrase "na mbeo gan bhreith" was never translated adequately into English. The Irish language is still, theoretically, the dominant language. The Constitution is written in Irish and translated into English and it adds perhaps to our sense of confusion and non-reality that the opposite is usually the case. Nevertheless, the Irish language version is, if anything, more ambiguous and more confusing than the English. That was the situation then and nothing has changed since.

At the risk of offending some of my colleagues here and as one who has more than a passing affection for Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution and the implied suggestion that the Constitution in some way applies to the whole of this island, it is particularly offensive — and I would address this remark to my colleagues opposite — if one believes in the validity of Articles 2 and 3 to include in the Constitution a section which is, and was, resolutely opposed by the Protestant churches.

As well as being undesirable for all those reasons this amendment has achieved no practical purpose. The numbers of women travelling from this State to Britain for abortions have not declined, while the female population of child-bearing age has manifestly declined. Between 125,000 and 150,000 women of child-bearing age emigrated from this country during the last decade, a large section of the population. A minimum of 4,000 and a possible maximum of 8,000 Irish woman travel to Britain each year for abortions and this amendment did not stop that. It presumably prevented those who could not afford £400 or £500 from travelling. It is an extraordinary country that imposes a morality on the poor while closing its eyes to the actions of those who can afford to escape that censorious morality. Effectively, we placed a ban on abortion for the poor as travel between these islands became increasingly easier for the rich.

The information debacle began the attempt to enforce this amendment in practical terms. It did not prevent people from travelling to Britain but ensured they had less information about where they were going, what would happen to them there and the sort of support services available to them. Consequently, many people delayed taking the decision to travel, the knowledge about who to contact when they got there was limited and many people have argued that the risk to the mother's life was increased while the safety of the unborn child was not affected. Those were some of the effects of the ban on information, together with ridiculous incidents such as books being withdrawn from public libraries and magazines, enforcing something close to self-censorship to no good purpose. The amendment did not stop people travelling to Britain.

The final dénouement took place during the past three weeks. Suffice to say that everyone was horrified at the circumstances and the Supreme Courts' decision got us off a very unpleasant hook. Now we are in the extraordinary situation that the Supreme Court has ruled that a person has the right to travel to Britain in full knowledge of the State to do something the Supreme Court has ruled no person has the right to receive information about in this State. I find the situation peculiar and contradictory. Apparently it is all right to travel in ignorance but unconstitutional to travel with adequate information.

In recent weeks those who used to scream the word "murder" loudest when the question of abortion was raised are among those who have screamed loudest that people should be allowed the right to travel. To travel to do what? To go on holidays? We know what they meant; they have signalled it to us.

I will not give lectures about sincerity; my own sincerity is so open to question after ten years in national politics that I would not lecture anybody about it. Yet, it is a less than comprehensive response to a difficult situation to say one believes in this case that people have the right to travel while declaring, at the same time that abortion is murder. People must pursue the logic of their own position. Fintan O'Toole said in The Irish Times today that if one insists that there is no difference between an abortion and putting someone against a wall to shoot them, then it is consistent to stop people travelling for abortion; otherwise we engage in a classic situation of nods and winks and avoiding reality.

I suspect we are trying to make ourselves feel better in the knowledge that we do not do "it" here, whether "it" is rape, incest, family violence or divorce, all of which we pretended until recently did not occur here. Now we are faced with a difficult and painful area of life and we are trying to convince ourselves yet again that somehow we are better because we do not do "it" here. We are all apparently queueing up to insist that we are not going to impede anybody's right to go elsewhere to do "it" but we will make sure that "it" is never done here. That reaction might be understandable but is no basis for a Constitution.

Abortion is perhaps the most hideously emotive issue. For women, no matter what their views are on it and for all parents, it is a difficult issue. Some describe it as murder and others as a human right. People feel deeply about its availability. The divisive feelings which abortion arouses do not give us any right to walk away from it. We must confront all of our ambivalent attitudes, whatever our views on the issue of this amendment. In today's issue of The Irish Times there is a letter which reads:

In 1988 our twin sons Evin and Oisin were stillborn at eight and a half months. This Irish State could not recognise their existence in any way — no naming, no birth or death certs. The Catholic church would not name them, baptise them or bury with the dignity of a funeral Mass or a funeral rite. I had to fight even to get their names carved on the gravestone.

That was in 1988. Could we please begin to confront the inconsistencies in our thinking, in our laws, in the way we avoid hard issues? We tell suffering bereaved parents that an eight and a half month old stillborn baby is not a human being and, at the same time, we strike moral and self-righteous poses about what we will not allow to be done in this country.

I am not here to point a finger at the Irish people and say, "You are worse than me, you are less honest than me". We are all involved in this situation. It is time we confronted ourselves in honesty and humility. I honestly do not know what to do or say about the fact that at least 40,000 women from this part of Ireland travelled to Britain in the past ten years to have an abortion. The real figure is perhaps twice that number. If one takes a middle figure of 60,000 one is perhaps talking about one in 15 women of childbearing age on this island having had an abortion during the past ten years. If we assume that a number of women have more than one abortion the number if one in 20 or 25, still a large number of women who travelled for an abortion in spite of a constitutional ban, in spite of Church denunciation, in spite of a ban on information. I do not know the solution to the problem but ignoring it is no solution.

This amendment needs to be confronted because it has not worked. It resulted only in a ban on information and in the strange and awful case revealed to us recently. Nobody now says they want to stop people travelling. All the amendment amounts to is a constitutional attempt to prevent abortion being carried out here while we apparently believe people should be free to have it done elsewhere. We should be done with this amendment. The Supreme Court is not going to amend or abolish it. It may interpret some aspects of it but that will not clear up all the questions raised. It will not do anything about freedom of information because it cannot. It has already made up its mind on that aspect. It may clarify some parts of this amendment but it most assuredly will not get rid of it.

We need a fresh start that recognises the divergence of views on this island held by churches, all of whom proclaim the sanctity of unborn life, but taking different positions. We cannot scream that good conscientious Christian men and women of a different tradition support murder; that is grossly offensive to them. We may think they are wrong but it is a travesty of Christianity and a gross offence to those equally good Christians to say to them that what they believe in is murder. It is not as simple as that; it would be lovely if it were.

Neither is it as simple as saying that women are being misled. When you consider the efforts and the trauma women have to undergo to travel to Britain you realise immediately that they do not do so easily or lightly. Even ten year ago, 25 per cent of the women travelling to Britain from Ireland for abortions were married women. Consider the strain, the stress and the pain they felt. Many of them travelled without their husband's knowledge. It is rarely a simple or an easy decision. We should not pretend it does not happen and that this decision is not taken by thousands of Irishwomen every week. Because it has not worked, it has produced a ban on information and amounts to no more than wrapping of a green flag sense of superiority around ourselves, we should get rid of it and face our realities in toto.

I keep on reading over the amendment to the motion and I am more astonished each time. Apparently Fine Gael do not believe we should talk about a comprehensive counselling advice and support service for all women in a crisis pregnancy situation until after the Supreme Court makes its judgment. Their amendment proposes to delete everything in my motion, including the recommendation to the Government to provide proper services for women in crisis pregnancy situations. I can only conclude that they did not read the motion carefully, or that they decided to run for cover. That is not right, any more than it was right ten years ago, in this House, when every Member of Fine Gael, except one, abstained on the constitutional amendment and by doing so let it through this House. Incidentally, few enough of those who voted against it are left. Only Senators Jack Harte, Shane Ross and myself of the gang of 14 or 15 who voted against the amendment in 1983 remain. Just in case anybody thinks the wrath of God has descended on us for voting against it, most of them have departed to the other House rather than to another place. So nobody has punished us for it.

The Fine Gael amendment, as it stands, says that we should "defer detailed discussion of Article 40.3.3º of the Constitution until Members have had an opportunity of studying the full text of the Supreme Court Judgment". If that is what Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil think, they should have stopped this debate. It would have been more consistent. That is the most peculiar amendment to a motion that I have ever seen. It actually proposes to amend the motion to say it should not discuss what it wants to discuss. I have seen amendments which said the opposite to motions, for example, praising instead of condemning the Government, amendments which said that the arguments were wrong, which suggested that people were getting it wrong. However, this is the first time I have seen an amendment to a motion which says we should not be discussing this at all.

Will we have a vote next week, after three hours of debate, to pass an amendment saying we should not have had three hours of debate? Will we attempt to rewrite three hours of our history to pretend we never had this debate in order to leave ourselves free to have a detailed discussion when their Lordships of the Supreme Court issue their judgment? That is what the amendment amounts to. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are perfectly free to object to this motion and to use the arguments about the Supreme Court's decision to say so; but to put down this amendment is to attempt to rewrite history. Even if Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil do not agree, those of us who want to do so will have a detailed discussion on Article 40.3.3º of the Constitution. The amendment to the motion will say we did not have that discussion. That is a good example of the problems we have facing reality in Irish life, when we endeavour to rewrite the Constitution to suit ourselves.

I wish that Fine Gael were as explicit in their views as Deputy Fennell, who is reported in today's Irish Independent as praising people for their courage and honesty in speaking out on abortion. People did not have to speak out on abortion here; they had only to speak out on an amendment to the Constitution which many of them — publicly at the time and privately subsequently — knew was wrong. This is not the way to deal with the issue. I do not wish to be confrontational. My view is that we would be as well off without this amendment, but that it would be difficult, divisive and bitter if we did not establish a consensus among ourselves about it, not a consensus on a minimalist approach based on the most minimalist interpretation of what their Lordships in the Supreme Court say. If they give five different reasons for coming to the same conclusion we will have real problems.

We need consensus on getting rid of something that has not worked, has not stopped anything, has not prevented anything and has not advanced any positive call. This constitutional amendment has enabled us to deceive ourselves for ten years. It has caused enormous suffering to large numbers of women, who quite clearly are and will continue to be determined to pursue the termination of their pregnancy when they believe that most suits their condition. It is not for me and for us at this stage to get involved in a long harangue about murder. If we believed it was murder we would stop them. Whatever we believe about abortion — and many people hold very different views — the argument that it is equivalent putting another human being up against a wall and shooting that human being falls flat on its face in the light of everyone's assertion that people should be free to travel.

I am doing myself no good by raising this issue. It is not an issue that will do anybody any good, according to my experience of such difficult issues. It invites the worst kind of prejudice and the lowest kind of argument, although I know that will not happen in this House. It also invites many people to misrepresent one's position. Ten years ago in this House I said I was against this amendment. I watched as, first of all, it faded into obscurity. Then it surfaced to impose a blanket ban on information. It surfaced again in its most horrific manifestation in the last few weeks. I concluded that it was time we dealt with it once and for all.

We must get rid of it before it does us as a community more harm, before it does some women more harm and before we are forced to indulge ourselves deeper and deeper in a morass of self-deception. We would be a better country without this amendment. We could make a case for positive support for women in crisis pregnancies. We could create an environment, as other countries have done, where fewer crisis pregnancies could happen, by a combination of an emphasis on responsible sexuality and on understanding of sexuality, an emphasis on access to contraceptives by people who are responsible about their sexual activity and on other such issues. Other countries, like The Netherlands, for instance, have done so. We will not do it by pretending we have abolished something, just because it does not happen here.

It is time, after ten years of self-deception, to end it all and start by getting rid of this amendment, which has done us no good and has done many women a considerable amount of harm. In the long term, no matter what their Lordships in the Supreme Court say, this amendment will be there next week and the week after unless we as legislators collectively decide to say to the Irish people "There is a better way of dealing with this problem. The Constitution is not the way to deal with it. Let us get rid of it and let us start again and deal with an Irish problem in a humane and intelligent way."

I am very glad to have the opportunity to second this motion. As I was not a Member of this House in 1983, I did not have an opportunity to be part of what Senator Ryan has described as the gang of 15. Had I been in the House I most certainly would have voted against it. I spoke in public during the referendum debate and I made clear my opposition to the inclusion of this amendment and the reasons for it. In so doing I instanced the kind of case that has recently been before the courts and, for my trouble, I was described as hysterical

Not for the first time.

It has now come to pass. I think one must take the situation seriously, Senator Honan. It is a matter of tragic human distress.

I take everything in this House seriously, Senator Norris. I do not want a lecture from you.

I will not be drawn into crossfire. It would be unwise on this occasion.

With regard to the behaviour of the two principal parties in this House, it is contemptible. What they are trying to do is to kick for touch. They want this discussion deferred. That is equivalent to a device "that the motion be not put." That is just wrong. They want to avoid discussion. We were told during the past few weeks that we must not discuss this issue. Why not? It is a matter of burning public interest. I know that a number of the people on both sides of the House who are against this proposal are anxious this evening. They are anxious that the debate should not collapse. I understand the Minister will not speak, there will not be a statement from the Government and so there is a possibility that the debate will collapse. If that is the case, then so be it. Let it collapse. If people in this House who have the opportunity to speak do not take the opportunity and it collapses for lack of speakers, then so be it.

We have too much respect for the Supreme Court.

In terms of this motion the judgment of the Supreme Court is completely irrelevant. What we are talking about is the removal of Article 40.3.3º. Whatever judgment is arrived at in the Supreme Court, whatever reasons are produced to determine the source of that judgment and to bolster up the case of the learned judges, the situation will not change. Those of us proposing this motion believe that Article 40.3.3º is an inappropriate and sectarian instrument. I was very glad to hear Senator Ryan refer to the fact that the various Churches, the Anglican Church of Ireland, the Church of Ireland, the Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church, made quite clear at the time, in 1983, their strong opposition to the holding of a referendum and to the wording of the referendum. I am astonished to be told that we are all cherished equally. I have seen situation after situation in which, certainly, members of the Protestant Churches and members of the various Reformed Churches are allowed to speak. We are allowed to speak, but we are not listened to and we are certainly not heard. I can speak as a practising member of the Church of Ireland, a church-going member. I heard in St. Patrick's Cathedral sermons which made this point quite clear. I heard Victor Griffin, the Dean of St. Patrick's, say, quite specifically that in theological terms a pregnancy resulting from rape was precisely a situation in which the Church to which I belong believed that, however regrettable, abortion was morally justifiable. Yet, this viewpoint was trampled over by the amendment.

May I say I find it patronising in the extreme to be told what the Protestant Churches think? I had this experience on the radio just the other day when a well-known Roman Catholic priest explained to me what the attitude of the Church of Ireland was. I know what it is. I do not need it explained. He was, actually, quite categorically wrong. It is very patronisinig to try to explain to somebody who is a member of the Church what that Church actually teaches.

With regard to Article 40.3.3º, it is an inappropriate instrument. The proper place to deal with this question of abortion is in the criminal law and not in the Constitution. It is divisive and dangerous. All political parties are implicated in this mess. It was actually Fine Gael who opened the door to this. I am sure they did it mistakenly, not maliciously, perhaps in a good hearted way; but they opened the door and, lamentably, Fianna Fáil played political football with the welfare of the Irish people. We have recently had a tragic example of where that callous insistence on playing always for your own party and sectoral advantage gets us.

The motion suggests that one should seek all-party support for such a referendum. I do not want to be bitter or divisive this evening because I think it is highly important that all-party consensus is agreed between the major political parties. I hope that nothing I say here this evening will prejudice that. I do not overvalue myself to the extent of believing anythink I could say here would prejudice realistic political discussions.

The 1983 Referendum in which the amendment was carried in its present particularly unfortunate wording, happened because the political parties allowed themselves to be divided by sectional interests I hope that this will not happen again. I believe that a referendum is necessary and could be sold to the Irish people if there was agreement between the political parties, if they consistently approached the situation in a harmonious way and explained to the Irish people the reasons for the necessity of holding such a referendum. I regret that this is necessary. I have no doubt that there will be divisive elements in it. I think, paradoxically, that by forcing this alien instrument into the Irish Constitution, its proponents back in 1983, ironically, helped to open the doors to abortion by placing it on the Irish agenda when it was not in fact ever a realistic political item at all.

May I comment also on the language in which this debate is conducted, because again I find something rather offensive about it, in particular the colonisation of language that has occurred. It is accepted generally that there are two major camps in this debate; one is described as pro life and the other is described as pro abortion. I absolutely and categorically reject this categorisation. I would describe myself as pro life. I do not know of any rational person who would not claim to be pro life. I have yet to meet anybody who claims to be pro abortion. Nobody in their right mind regards abortion as a positive blessing, something without which a human being is incomplete or anything like that. So it is a completely dishonest tactic to divide people into pro life on the one hand and pro abortion on the other.

I have had some experience in this area. For ten years I was a tutor in the University of Dublin, Trinity College, and I dealt in my capacity as tutor, in loco parentis, with the difficulties which students encountered during their undergraduate years. Perhaps because my own private life had been disclosed fairly comprehensively in the Irish newspapers during a court case which I took and because I was not prepared to be either driven out of this country or made feel ashamed of myself, a number of young women approached me in great distress because of a pregnancy they had not anticipated and which was unwelcome for one reason or another. I think there were probably about a dozen. The first thing I did was to attempt to take down the temperature. This is why I welcome the sensitive wording of Senator Ryan's proposal.

The Senator talks about crisis pregnancy situations and that is exactly what I remember. I remember feeling compassion for these young women who were clearly in a crisis in their personal and emotional lives. They were sometimes hysterical with grief, confusion and unhappiness. The first thing I tried to do was to comfort them and to reduce the emotional pressure under which they were suffering so that they could make a rational decision. I hope that in most cases I was successful.

At that time I could send them to a non-directive counselling agency, of which there were a number in this city. In those agencies, which were professional, caring and decent groups but who were subsequently horribly maligned by people opposed to what they were doing, they were given information. Both sides of the question were clearly laid out for them, on the one hand, the consequences of going ahead and seeking a termination of the pregnancy, with a possible emotional setback, and the physical consequences and, on the other hand, the inevitable consequences of keeping the child, in practical terms, economically, domestically, emotionally and in terms of their lifestyle. Of those young women, one, to my knowledge, had an abortion and remained content, as far as I could see but the other ten or 11 did not. Had I not been in a position to reduce the tension, to take the hysteria out of the situation, and assist them to make a calm and rational decision, I am certain, as an experienced tutor, that a majority of those young women would have got on a boat in misery, distress and confusion; they would have gone to a telephone box in central London, looked up a telephone directory and telephoned whatever abortion agency was available, which, even from a medical point of view, might not have been the best.

I think it is positively wicked not to allow people access to information. To deny any person the right to information is a violation of the fundamental human rights that are referred to in every human rights code and convention. Here we have a laughably absurd situation which it would require the talent of Jonathan Swift to deal with. A young child, which is basically what she is, is permitted to go to England but she is not permitted to have information about the address to which she is travelling. Could anything be more absurd? Are we determined to make a laughing stock of ourselves? I am almost ashamed to say "laughing stock" because there is nothing laughable in this. It is a pitiable and tragic situation. When I listen to people who speak from a Christian position I wonder what kind of morality they have. I wonder about it, for example, when I hear of a priest suspecting collusion or suggesting that parents should have lied. I wonder what kind of morality that is. I know of many wonderful priests, nuns and bishops in the Roman Catholic Church and I do not want to be offensive to my Roman Catholic friends and fellow country people, but I was concerned when I heard Bishop Smith of Meath, for example, saying, the other day, that he wondered whether it was going to be possible for a husband to injunct a sick wife. It seemed to me, from the way he said it, that he was hoping it was. I wonder about the kind of relationship a family like that would have.

With regard to abuse, I am told that some abusive letters and materials have been directed to people who take a different view to myself. I condemn that unreservedly. I have received some rather unpleasant squalid material through the post. I know exactly what to do with it. It goes directly into the bin. I assume that every other balanced, reasonable person does exactly the same. I deplore anything sent that is of an obnoxious nature. I do not intend to refer to this in any detail, nor do I intend to make it public, because if the young child at the centre of this case became aware of it, she would find it exceedingly distressing.

With regard to the political repercussions of this and the Maastricht meeting, the Irish Foreign Minister went to Maastricht and sought a derogation with regard to abortion. Could anything be more foolish and more awkward in a political sense? We never sought a derogation with regard to Articles 2 and 3, of which Senator Brendan Ryan spoke. Are we more concerned about snooping into the private lives of citizens violating the constitutional rights of the family with this kind of noxious injunction, than we are about Articles 2 and 3, which are seriously and clearly compromised by both the Treaty of Rome and Maastricht? I think that is most extraordinary and regrettable.

I cannot say I have pleasure in seconding this motion. I do not think anybody takes pleasure in this particular situation, but I formally second the motion.

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Deputy O'Dea, to this House and wish him luck in his new portfolio.

All the major parties in the House were more or less in agreement that this debate could be deferred until such time as the Supreme Court decision was available. I spoke on this matter two weeks ago. Many people were then under the impression that the High Court decision could not be reversed. As it has transpired, the Supreme Court has, to a large extent, reversed the decision of the High Court. I was one of those who advocated that this avenue should be explored, given that the Supreme Court is the highest court in this country and a guardian of our Constitution. Senator Brendan Ryan, as the mover of this motion, was asked by the Whips to defer it, possibly for a few days. I want to make it clear that it was never the intention of the Government side to force the withdrawal of the motion, by way of vote on the Order of Business today. The proposers had the option, and they decided to go ahead. We respect their decision, they were entitled to do so, and I would like to make it clear that no pressure was put on them. We, on this side of the House, asked for a consensus approach on this very sensitive issue.

Senator Ryan, said he did not want a divisive debate. Most people, from all sides of the House, see this as a very sensitive issue and would wish to explore all avenues without rushing into a referendum. Senator Ryan, and to a lesser extent Senator Norris, should realise that the very essence of their motion creates divisiveness.

Senator Norris accused the Government side, and possibly also our colleagues in Fine Gael, the Progressive Democrats and Labour, of kicking for touch. I totally disagree. As far as I am concerned, nobody is kicking for touch. We are saying the matter should be deferred until the full text of the Supreme Court decision is available. We are not saying that we are looking for a referendum, nor are we denying that, when the full text of the Supreme Court comes to hand, a referendum may be necessary. We are keeping an open mind. We, on the Government side, support the amendment put down by Fine Gael as we feel that the motion is premature. It is dangerous and foolhardy to speculate on the likely outcome of the Supreme Court decision as the motion appears to do. The res judicata has been given to a certain extent, in so far as the Supreme Court has overturned the High Court injunction preventing the girl travelling from this jurisdiction.

The reasoning for the Supreme Court decision has not yet been made public, although I understand the full text of the judgment by the highest court in our land will soon be made available, hopefully, this week. We do not know the reasons the Supreme Court may give. We do not know how complex such a judgment will be until we know the full content of the judgment, including all the obiter dicta, etc. I feel we should not comment further or embark on an avenue of speculation which might be damaging. The Government side are committed — I would like this to be emphasised again — to allow a debate on this most important issue. In our view — and I think this is the view of all the major parties — when the text of the Supreme Court decision comes to hand, and having had a chance to study the text, we will then have a full debate on it. It may be at that stage that we, on this side of the House, might differ from Fine Gael, the Progressive Democrats or Labour on certain aspects of this decision, but that remains to be seen.

I compliment the expeditious manner in which the Supreme Court dealt with this sensitive issue. Sometimes the courts are criticised for delays and so, but the Surpreme Court took this appeal on board and in a matter of hours rather than days were able to come up with a decision. Hopefully, the full text will be made available to us in the very near future and a full debate will possibly come before this House next week or as soon as is practicable.

I feel like starting off by asking the last speaker to define "as soon as is practicable" because it is quite relevant.

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Seanad Éireann" and substitute the following:

"resolves to defer detailed discussion of Article 40.3.3º of the Constitution until Members have had an opportunity of studying the full text of the Supreme Court judgment interpreting its application in the recent case of a 14 year old rape victim."

I find myself in little disagreement with both the mover and seconder of the motion, as I feel many in this House would tonight. I regret that divisiveness has to creep into this House in our debate on such a difficult and sensitive issue. I had hoped that all parties, including the Independents, could contribute to a considered and lengthy debate on the issues that have convulsed the nation in the last few weeks on what many may consider the stupidity of what was done in 1983 and the detailed judgment we await from the Supreme Court on the specific case that has been brought to our attention in recent weeks.

I am one who spoke two weeks ago in this House, so my views on the general issue before us are on record. I will repeat a couple of sentences of what I said then. I stated there must never be another case like this, referring to the 14 year old. What we as legislators must do must be done now to ensure that no victim of rape or sexual abuse, nor the victim's family, will in future be confronted by the trauma of the appalling court proceedings we recently witnessed. I was referring to the High Court proceedings at that stage. I went on to say that we needed broad political agreement on the necessary steps to be taken, even if that involves a referendum. Regrettably, I believe it will involve a referendum, I said on that occasion — and I still believe it will involve a referendum — then that must be faced up to. Those are my views, as of two weeks ago, on the record and the views of most of my colleagues in this party.

I feel that bashing certain political parties because you do not like the wording of our amendment or because of the logistics of the amendment, if you like, is in many ways distracting from the real issue before the House. I regret the tone taken by the mover and the seconder of the motion. In fact, I am surprised by the tone taken by them in relation to the amendment. I have no difficulty in discussing it. If they wish to talk for the rest of this evening and all of next week, we will vote and then decide. Hopefully, Sir, once we have the judgment of the Supreme Court — we expect it either late tonight, tomorrow or in the next day or two — we will then have the all-day debate that was promised by the Leader today — an all-day debate, not a few hours here and there, as Private Members' debates are structured at this moment, but an all-day debate on this critical issue.

Ironically it is my view, for what it is worth and the little time we have here tonight to discuss it, that the amendment 40.3.3º allows for conditional abortion in this country whereas the situation pre-1983 prohibited abortion under any circumstances. By introducing the expressions "with due regard to the equal right of life of the mother" and "as far as is practicable" they are allowing abortions in certain cases. In fact, the amendment merely weakened the position in this country from the perspective of those who were trying to tighten it up relative to the position pre-1983.

There is a lot to be talked about and above all we need light and not heat in debating this issue. It is very hard to be emotional, but as far as possible we must try to analyse the situation. I accept what Senator Brendan Ryan said, that we must confront ourselves, analyse what we are at, where we are coming from and, more importantly, where we are going to as a nation. A lot of good may come from this child's trauma if we face up to the situation and become realistic and not always be offering Irish solutions to Irish problems.

Fine Gael in 1983 did not approve of the wording that was being promoted for the amendment. We did foolishly, as did Fianna Fáil and others, get caught up in pre-election promises to put a referendum before the people on the issue. Even though Fine Gael did not approve the wording that was finally voted through this House — we had been advised by the Attorney General at the time, Peter Sutherland, that it did not make sense, that it was a legal minefield and he has been proven right subsequently — we must take the consequences because we were in Government at the time and we must face up to whatever resolutions are needed. I think another time rather than Private Members' Time must be used for a considered and informed debate on this most important of issues.

I would urge support all round for the amendment. I take the point Senator Ryan made that the debate will have happened and the amendment might seem to be saying that we should not have had it, or that we should not have it, but there is a very clear message in the amendment which I hoped the movers of the motion would have got. The motion appeals for all party support in terms of attacking this issue. There is divisiveness already in the very fact that we cannot agree the structures in which we debate it.

I must compliment the Leader for allowing a discussion on this issue in the Seanad two weeks ago, even though a similar debate has yet to take place in Dáil Éireann. Let us be fair, it has yet to take place in Dáil Éireann and we have already had one discussion. We are having a sort of a discussion here tonight even though most of us feel it should be left for the all-day debate. We will have both now, as it transpires, and so be it.

I urge that we do not introduce contention or divisiveness even in Private Members' time. This issue is more important than any of our personal views. The collective wisdom of this House and further afield will have enormous difficulty in resolving it. There are far wiser men and women than ourselves trying to solve this problem, who have been trying to solve it for a long time, and have yet to come up with a solution. I do not think we should overrate our importance except that this is a Parliamentary Chamber and we must do our duty by debating an issue that is of urgent concern, an issue that has convulsed this nation. One of the few benefits of the Seanad over the Dáil is that we can respond more immediately to the issues of the day rather than go through very protracted procedures before we can get on the Order Paper topics we would like to discuss. That is an enormous benefit of the Seanad, and we must never deny it.

I urge unity in our approach to this issue. I have no difficulty with a lot of what is in the motion "...the uncertainty of interpretation which resulted in such unnecessary trauna"; nobody disagrees with that; ...the ban on certain types of information", nobody disagrees with the difficulties that has caused; providing "comprehensive counselling, advice and support services", nobody disagrees with that.

Why not agree to it then?

Because we do not believe this is the way to discuss this most important of issues. We want all party, all side support; we want a full day, or two days if need be, to discuss it rather than a few hours Private Members' Time tonight a few hours next week to discuss it. I also feel that the Supreme Court judgment is relevant. It is not the full story; I accept that. It is far from the full story. The problem was there——

(Interruptions.)

The Senator should address the Chair and should be allowed to proceed without any further interruptions. Senator O'Toole will have an opportunity, if he so desires, to speak later.

Thank you, Sir for your protection. I will conclude by saying that I welcome the opportunity, which I hope maybe next Thursday, as has been indicated provisionally by the Leader of the House — assuming of course that we have the Supreme Court judgment, which I think we should have any day — for a full and comprehensive debate on this most difficult of issues. I hope it will not be divisive and will allow those of all views, and differing views on this issue, and of none, regardless of their party affiliations to say their piece and to put on the record their personal views on what for many people is a very difficult topic to discuss and to decide on where they should come down.

I personally feel that a referendum will be the only ultimate solution to the problem. I know there are many people who have no stomach for it. We need only look back to 1983 and understand why they feel like that. Let us put our heads together and do what we can and hopefully add something, to resolving the issue that has been before us now for so long and ensure that never again will we witness this spectacle of a 14-year-old, or indeed any other woman being hauled before the courts in Ireland to answer for her personal decision in relation to a matter as difficult as this.

I wish to formally second the amendment.

That Senator has already spoken.

He cannot formally second it.

In that case, I formally second it.

When I put my name to this motion — although my name did not actually appear on the Order Paper so I could have had the best of both worlds — I did so because I support this motion and also because I assumed that the Supreme Court would by today have issued the reasons for its judgment.

I have a lot of support and sympathy for the view put forward here both by Government and the main Opposition party. For the record I do not believe that it is kicking to touch on their part. I accept their sincerity in this matter. Unless we make the generous gestures of accepting the sincerity of others in this matter we are not going to get very far towards an all-party consensus, which is important not only on this matter but on other difficult decisions being made in amending the Constitution. I speak, for example, of a possible divorce amendment, not to speak of constitutional change in the Northern context. Whatever past we have all had and whatever we could draw up about people's stupidity in accepting unnecessary amendments and so on, we are now into a new chapter and I think we should behave accordingly.

However, I am still mystified by the Fine Gael amendment, because whatever about the Government approach today on the Order of Business — after all, I suppose they had to accept that this was in Independent Member's time — certainly if Fine Gael did not agree with it they should have opposed the Order of Business instead of having this inexplicable amendment. I do not intend to speak at length because we had an opportunity two weeks ago and I accept that we are going to have quite a long debate again very soon. I also accept that the reasons the Supreme Court will give will make no essential difference to the situation. Senator Ryan made that point today to me in conversation. Nonetheless, I think all of us will be more fully informed in approaching this topic when we have the reasons for the judgment.

I was not involved in the 1983 referendum because I was not in the House at that time — due to a regrettable electoral oversight, on the part of graduates — but I felt in 1983 that the amendment was unnecessary and ever since then, long before this tragic case came up, I felt that it has been increasingly disastrous. It is undeniably denominational, because if you have a section in the Constitution like the absolute prohibition on divorce which is the teaching of one, and only one, Church in the State, then that inescapably marks the Constitution in these clauses as denominational. For that reason alone it is suspect.

Senator Doyle and others have pointed out how very difficult this issue is and Senator Norris has said that nobody really in their right mind is pro abortion. Even those who are very liberal in their attitude to contraception, who have no difficulty about the universal availability of contraceptives, are really uneasy about abortion. It is for that reason that the feminist principle of women's right to choose and women having the absolute right over their own bodies obviously is unacceptable to our society at least, because in the ultimate it involves abortion for any reason. That absolute feminist principle, to me at any rate, is unacceptable. On the other hand, where life begins is a mystery even to the physiologists and I certainly could not possibly accept that a fertilised speck has the same rights as a adult.

But let us not go into that at the moment. It is enough to say that the Article 4.3.3º is an unsuitable vehicle for conveying this kind of belief or legislation. As has been pointed out by Dr. Margaret Fine-Davis — and I quoted her in my contribution two weeks ago — it is quite obvious from the way people make reservations and exceptions when they are asked if they would allow abortion in certain cases that a "yes" or "no" crudity is not an adequate vehicle to convey what should be the rule of the country about such a complicated matter.

I thought the High Court judgment followed logically from the rigour of Article 40.3.3º and I thought the ban on information followed logically from Article 40.3.3º. That ban on information is stupid and infantile. It leads to such absurdities as the blotting out of an abortion number from an Irish Times photograph. That kind of pretence really recalls what Friedrich Engels said in the famous observation to Marx: he was fond of Ireland, but Ireland exasperated him; and one of the things that exasperated him was how the people of Ireland feel that their concerns, the concerns of this insula sancta, must on no account be mixed up with the concerns of the central world outside of Ireland. There is still much of that hypocrisy and self-deception evident, particularly on what I would call the logical consequences of the constitutional amendment.

Senator Norris's observations on his experience as a tutor makes me wonder what would be the consequences if there were everywhere a more enlightened and open approach to the problems of sexuality, not simply abortion. It is possible, for example, that, if we had not imposed this rigorous constitutional ban in 1983 and had instead opted for open counselling and retention of the existing law on abortion, we might have fewer abortions and certainly a less fearful and apprehensive climate in the context of which so many women go to England to shamefully have performed what cannot happen at home.

I am not going to go any further than that except to say that I support the motion. It may well be that the most unlikely place to look for a model for our problems is Northern Ireland, which despite its horrific problems and conflict has, it seems to me, quite a sensible modus vivendi— if that is the appropriate word in this context — both in terms of the contraception issues and of abortion without what many people would regard as the permissiveness of the approach in other countries in this regard. I repeat that I fully support the appeals at this stage for no acrimony, for the utmost in co-operation, because it is only through the ultimate consensus of the constitutional parties that we have any hope of securing a solution to this problem.

May I make two points in conclusion which have no relation to this at all? I welcome the Minister and wish him well in his portfolio. May I also ask the Chair to note that in this small Chamber there are frequently three or four different conversations going on — at the moment I am fortunate — while a speaker is on his or her feet. I think that is enormously distracting.

Acting Chairman

The Chair has not noticed, while the Senator was speaking anyway.

I am not speaking about myself; indeed, I may have been guilty of whispering myself at times, but I am increasingly conscious that it is enormously distracting and it is something we should note.

Acting Chairman

I quite agree.

It had not been my intention to speak tonight but I think it is critically important that the Government at least have to respond on this issue. I find it extraordinary that we finally have come to the point of discussing this most pressing and topical issue in the public mind at the moment — the kind of issue which we from all sides of the House have determined should be discussed in this House — we fail to find any people to discuss it. I do not know when we last had three groups in the House supporting an amendment which means nothing, and it certainly does not mean anything. I just wonder what view these groups are going to take next week if in the meantime the Supreme Court judgment becomes available. Are we still, despite all that, going to press this amendment? Have the other groups considered their position in that situation? How can you then decide that we should defer the motion? The amendment, which has been duly proposed and seconded by the Progressive Democrats this evening, will then come before us in a situation where the information required is there; yet you are still committed to deciding that we will defer discussion that has taken place on the basis of the text of the Supreme Court not being available, though it will be available by that time. It seems an extraordinary convoluted, contortionist approach to debate.

I go along with the views of the people who said that nobody wants to be fighting again an amendment on this issue. Many of us were scarred the last time around. I personally take the view that I would have been in this House five or six years earlier were it not for the row in 1983 and I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach with the thoughts of another amendment, debate and argument. That is why I would like to point out that Senator Ryan's motion in the first place seeks all-party support for a referendum. I fail to see how that can be seen to be divisive. It might well be that that discussion or that approach can only begin after the Supreme Court information has become available. I do not actually see it that way myself, but if people interpret it that way they are quite entitled to do so. But surely it is a matter that is open for debate.

In regard to the idea of depriving people of information, Senator Ryan talked about the extraordinary position of a pregnant person who wishes to go to another jurisdiction to terminate a pregnancy. It is all right for that person to travel in ignorance, but it is unconstitutional to travel informed. It is the old story of walking backwards into the future. Every way we look at this conundrum we have created for ourselves, it is not open to clear interpretation, it is not open to clear application and it certainly does not touch in any caring, responsible and supportive way the lives of ordinary people.

I am particularly concerned about information because my job as a teacher was a job of communication. That has always been the concern of teachers. Every time the word "sex" raises its head, every time the word "morality" in the sexual context raises its head, it all goes back to information. It is the old mushroom policy: tell them nothing, keep them in the dark, and watch them grow — and the other bits as well. It seems precisely the way we approach tricky issues in our society. I have already referred to the fact that the life of the young child — and she was only a child — in the middle of this whole controversy has been ruined. I hope I am wrong in what I say, but I cannot see any way that that child will ever fully recover from her horrible experience at our hands — and all of us who are legislators must take responsibility. There is collective responsibility there and, whatever side we took, we have to take some responsibility for it. We have hurt that young child, for whatever the reason willy-nilly we have done it at this stage. We had the opportunity in 1983 perhaps to go a different way but, we choose as a nation not to do it. Democracy has taken its toll, and it has been a high price indeed.

I feel that the point which Senator Norris made about the lack of information available to young people is causing a huge problem. Let me tie the present situation into the general problems that are experienced by young people. Apart from all that has happened since this young person's pregnancy became public knowledge, the crucial thing for me and for many teachers and, I am sure, for many parents also would be that were it not for the fact that she became pregnant nobody would ever have known that she had been abused and was being consistently and continually sexually abused. The parents only became aware of it when they became aware of her pregnancy. I think that that is horrific in itself, because that means that in our society there are many other children suffering similarly but who do not know how to cope because we do not give the information; who do not know how to respond because we pretend it does not happen; who do not know where to go for help because there is no help there for them. That is the society that we are running. We are failing to respond, we are failing to address these issues and we will continue to keep this going.

I spoke on this particular issue in the context of the debate about the 14-year-old schoolgirl and the response I got through phone calls and the letters took me back ten years, it was like deja vu— the same old letters, the same old phone calls, the same people, because they have been mobilised and are on the war path again and, as they put it themselves, they are on a war footing to take us on all over again. I have no doubt about the horrific consequences to Irish society were we to go into another amendment to the Constitution and my hope would be that it would not have to happen. However, from what I have read from the Supreme Court, the legal position, a reading of the Constitution, the response from constitutional lawyers, the response from legislators, every indication is that we are going to have to grasp this nettle once again. For that reason the proposal from Senator Ryan that such an approach would be all-party, would be collective, surely has the most merit and surely must be the approach that anybody in this House would go along with.

We are coming towards the end of tonight's debate and a week will see many changes. I would like to make a final appeal. I realise I have some time left next week and I hope that when I come back to finish my contribution next Wednesday evening times will have changed and that the parties who are represented here will do the correct thing and will not push this extraordinary, I suppose extraordinary is not the proper word for it, the proposed amendment which is not capable of being implemented. At least one can then say times have changed and circumstances alter cases. Do not push that incredible piece of nonsense and we promise not to make any jokes about it next week. Let it die the death it is entitled to.

Debate adjourned.
Top
Share