Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I remind Senators that this debate is due to adjourn at 5.45 p.m., if not previously concluded. Before we move to the amendments, I welcome to the Gallery members of the Together for Safety campaign for safe access zones. They are very welcome.
Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage
SECTION 1
Amendment No. 1 is in the names of Senators Mullen and Keogan. Amendments Nos. 1 to 5 are related and may be discussed together by agreement. Is that agreed? Agreed.
I move amendment No. 1:
In page 3, between lines 18 and 19, to insert the following:
“ “designated institution of higher education” has the same meaning as it has in the Higher Education Authority Act 2022;”.
Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach, agus cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. This amendment provides that in page 3, between lines 18 and 19, that the words "designated institution of higher education" have the same meaning as they have in the Higher Education Authority Act 2022.
Amendment No. 5 proposes that on page 6, between lines 15 and 16, that the following words be inserted as a subparagraph (3): "Nothing in section 2(2) shall prohibit a person from engaging in debate or lawful protest, advocacy or dissent on premises occupied by a designated institution of higher education, provided such debate, protest, advocacy or dissent is not directed at a specific relevant healthcare premises or persons accessing a relevant healthcare premises."
I have already criticised this legislation extensively on Second Stage. I think there are all sorts of constitutional questions attached to it. It reflects very badly on all those involved in bringing it forward. It is legislation that is really not about facilitating people or preventing them from being harassed at all, but is in fact about crushing dissent on an important issue of controversy. Dissent should be allowed everywhere in a democracy, but if there is one place where we should ring-fence and make sure the right to free speech, free exchange of ideas and the right to test ideas and prejudices of every kind, overreach of Government or power of any kind, it is surely in our institutes of higher education.
Taking into account the terms of section 53 of the 2022 Act, in my view, the envisaged university exemption should apply to all the designated higher education institutes referred to in section 53, rather than just the universities. It is on that basis that I have drafted the relevant amendments on this aspect. My version of the proposed new subsection for higher education institutions seeks to align with the wording of section 3(1), to a large extent, not with section 3(2), which would perhaps have been a more ambitious option but with significant differences from section 3(1).
There is a specific reference to debate, because that is more necessary and especially appropriate in the context of higher education institutions than it would be near the Houses of the Oireachtas. Although it would be better if it were included even in relation to that area. I also note that there does not appear to be any reference to "lawful debate" anywhere in Irish legislation, though the word "debate" itself occurs in 28 provisions in the Irish Statute Book.
Section 3(1) states that the protest, etc., near the Oireachtas must not be "directed at a specific relevant healthcare premises, or persons accessing a relevant healthcare premises, within that 100 metres", that is, from an entrance to the House. This wording says that the debate or protest must not be "directed at a specific relevant healthcare premises or persons accessing a relevant healthcare premises". There are various options. If we added to the first part of that wording, the phrase, "situated within premises occupied by a designated institution of higher education", there could be protest or advocacy within the education premises being "directed at a specific relevant healthcare premises or persons accessing a relevant healthcare premises" that was just outside - for example, 10 m away from the edge of the education premises. This will probably be used as an effective argument against this amendment. For this reason, I have not worded it that way, nor have I added in the part about "100 metres of an entrance to a premises occupied by such an institution".
How my amendment is worded should make it palatable to Senators who do not consider themselves pro-life. It might be more palatable to them if the references to debate in the proposed subsection were deleted also but for the reasons indicated I would not be inclined to do so.
It might be the case that some higher education institutes, perhaps even most, would have a relevant healthcare premises as part of their own premises, bearing in mind the broad definition of that term in section 1 of the Bill. I do not think this presents a problem because the exemption expressly provides that it is applicable only where such debate, protest, advocacy or dissent is not directed at a specific relevant healthcare premises or persons accessing a relevant healthcare premises.
I note that amendment No. 1 introduces into the Bill a mention of an Act not currently mentioned therein. This would mean having to insert a mention of that Act in the list of Acts on page 2 of the Bill.
I will leave it at that for the moment and will come back in if necessary.
I will speak to this section of the Bill. I thank the Minister for coming into the Chamber and bringing this legislation to Committee Stage. I was not able to contribute on Second Stage.
This legislation is part of the programme for Government. Ultimately, it allows for safe access, dignity and privacy to those availing of termination of pregnancy services. The legislation will create safe zones of 100 m from an entrance or exit to a premises where obstetricians, gynaecologists and GPs provide these services. All of us are getting emails from various people and organisations around the country showing that, to this day, people’s access is being intruded upon. Therefore, this legislation is urgent. It is urgent that it passes today and we do not see massive filibustering. It is important legislation to ensure women, their families and their friends who are accessing these vital services are not impeded whatsoever in getting that access.
I look forward to this Bill passing Committee Stage today without any delay. I again thank the Minister and I thank everyone in the House. It is to be hoped everyone can support this.
I will keep it short. In May 2018, the Irish people voted by 66.4% to remove the eighth amendment, choosing to replace it with the following text as part of the 36th amendment, “Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancy.” It does not state this should include harassment, shouting and insults as one accesses this free legal service. We are here today because the treatment of people outside certain places is absolutely disgusting. It is hard enough for a woman to make the choice to get an abortion in the first place. Not one single woman thinks, “Great. I am delighted with this.” They all feel bad about going for an abortion. This is last thing they need. It is none of these people’s goddamn business and they should keep their rosaries off our ovaries and leave us be. Unfortunately, because they are not doing that, we need this Bill to at least get them to back off 100 m. That is what this Bill is doing. It would be 1 km if I were in charge, or they should be arrested because it is none of their goddamn business. However, we have freedom of speech. You can roar all you want but you can do it from 100 m away.
I urge this Bill to be brought forward. We have had great support from Together for Safety and the National Women’s Council. It should have happened the day we got abortion rights brought into this country but, unfortunately, it took us this long due to many obstacles created by people who will never have to go for an abortion themselves.
I thank the Minister for bringing this forward. It is another step in the right direction. We have had much good progress, such as expansion of free contraceptive schemes – to other people’s horror as well – and elimination of VAT on period products and HRT. This is a great day and I thank the Minister. Just back off 100 m and let women make their choice, as was voted by the people.
I remind Members to please speak to the amendments or the sections because we want to get through the amendments and get this legislation, as the Senator said, passed.
I second the amendment. I have raised concerns with the House about this Bill’s draconian implications, which are just as worrying as the hate speech Bill in terms of their impact on civil liberties. I am glad to cosign these amendments with Senator Mullen because they at least go some distance in making this Bill less restrictive. Each amendment draws attention to a particular deficiency within the current legislation that needs to be recognised by the public and reflected upon. However, I must emphasise that I still disagree with the principle of this Bill, which is not being introduced to curb harassment, which is already a crime under existing public order law, but rather to target and smear a particular ethical and moral viewpoint.
Amendments Nos. 1 and 5 are interrelated. They seek to ensure freedom of speech in higher education institutions. It is of concern to me that in the current wording, a college dispensary would be considered a valid safe access zone. As a zone affects any entryway into a designated premises, this could mean that potentially several 100 m zones could be created along entrances into college campuses. Since any efforts to influence someone’s decision to have an abortion is criminalised under this law, it would be hard to argue that a pro-life speaker in a debate would not essentially be urging their listeners to reconsider their position on abortion. This would, at the very least, create a chilling effect. Therefore, these amendments at least attempt to guarantee freedom of speech in higher education institutions, which should be a bastion for free expression and debate.
I welcome our colleagues from Together for Safety to the Chamber. I am clear, as I have said on many occasions, that without Together for Safety we would not be here today. I give them all credit for their campaigning. I also give credit to everyone in this Chamber who united behind our Bill, which was a Together for Safety Bill, and I want to give credit to the Minister for following through on this particularly important legislation.
On the amendments being considered today, it is important that we remember what we are talking about, namely, people being targeted on their way to hospital or to important medical appointments. That is just fundamentally wrong. I will quote a doctor from University Hospital Limerick, UHL She said, "protesters stare down all of the women and girls who enter our building with a distasteful voyeuristic interest". They have signs that say "Praying for You" and "Praying for Aborted Children". Anyone can protest. That is absolutely fine, but the idea that you target people on their way to private medical appointments is entirely wrong and flies in the face of the vote we had for repeal just a few years ago. We have been waiting a long time for this legislation. We are nearly there. Let us get on with it.
I thank all colleagues for their contributions. It is a timely debate in the Seanad today. I want to acknowledge the support broadly across the Seanad. Obviously, there are those who disagree with the legislation, and I fully respect that, but there is broad support for it in the Seanad and the Dáil. The Bill has passed all Stages in the Dáil, and we are now here on Committee Stage in the Seanad.
It is timely that we are having this debate today. I had the great pleasure of being able to bring a memorandum on women’s healthcare that is very relevant to the Bill to Government this morning. Colleagues will be aware that in 2022, we launched our first ever women’s health action plan, which is a two-year plan. Ireland is one of the only countries in the world to have done this. I acknowledge the work of healthcare workers and my officials right across the country. If all aspects of healthcare were picked up and run with the same gusto as that relating to the women’s health action plan, we would certainly have fewer debates in this Chamber about things that need to be fixed. I am happy to report that important progress has been made over the past two years. This Bill is another important step in ensuring that we have fit-for-purpose healthcare services for women in Ireland but, furthermore, our ambition is to be recognised around the world as one of the most progressive and most advanced countries for high quality, accessible healthcare services for women. We are on the way and we will launch a new two-year women’s health action plan soon. I very much look forward to coming back and updating colleagues on that.
What is before us today is part of the new philosophy which says that women must be able to have access to the best healthcare services that can be provided, be it in respect of maternity care, endometriosis, perinatal mental health teams or advanced menopause treatments and services we are putting in place. There are the see-and-treat gynaecology clinics and so on.
Critically, and probably uniquely, when it comes to access to termination of pregnancy services, there is an extra layer we need, which is to make sure that women have unimpeded access, that they cannot be harassed, bullied or intimidated and that they cannot have people trying to influence what, as Senator Garvey said, is never an easy decision for any woman to make. I was in Sligo University Hospital on Friday to open the 16th see-and-treat gynaecology clinic. Believe it or not, the healthcare workers there, by means of this new approach, have reduced the waiting list for women to access gynaecology services from four years. Imagine that from the initial referral by a GP to seeing a hospital-based gynaecologist there was a waiting list of four years. It is now four weeks. That is our ambition in women’s healthcare. Of course, no woman going to access the see-and-treat gynaecology clinic in Sligo University Hospital walks in there afraid of being threatened, abused, harassed, bullied or intimidated.
It is just not part of the service. When it comes to termination of pregnancy services, uniquely, or at least I hope it is unique, we know from reports right across the country, from listening carefully to women and from listening to our healthcare workers that in some cases women are being harassed, intimidated and abused. This is unfortunate and regrettable. We have seen similar attempted coercive behaviour directed towards our healthcare professionals as well. It is my position, and that of the vast majority of people, that such very unpleasant behaviour is completely unacceptable. Any man, woman or child in our Republic must be able to access all healthcare services without any sense of concern for any of the issues we have raised here. That goes for termination of pregnancy services along with everything else.
While I acknowledge some of the essential intent behind the tabling of these two amendments - I agree that we must have open and free debate in our Republic, in our universities, colleges and institutes of higher education and in our secondary schools and everywhere else - this Bill imposes a very modest requirement on any higher education authority. All it says is that if you have a health centre, GPs and health services - the ones that qualify in terms of termination of pregnancy services, the ability to access medications, etc. - on your campus, women must be able to access them without any worry that they will be harassed, intimidated or interfered with in any way. These are not easy times. This is not an easy thing for a woman to do.
My view, like what is enshrined in the legislation, is very modest. Of course there should be debate on all manner of things in our higher education authorities, including termination of pregnancy services. Abortion and a wide range of other issues, which we deal with here in the Oireachtas all the time, are debated in universities and higher institutes, as they should be. All we are saying is that such debates should not take place within 100 m of where women need to access services. That is it. No one is saying you cannot debate it. Fill your boots. Debate it. Say what you want to say. Be as antagonistic or as thought-provoking as you need to be. Let us engage in rigorous debate, but let us not do it within 100 m of where women are trying to access services. That is it. That is all we are asking.
For those reasons, I cannot accept the amendments. I fully support freedom of speech. I fully support rigorous debate in our colleges but if we are having a debate about whether a woman who could be walking across a campus somehow should not be for whatever reason accessing healthcare services - if that is the debate one wants to have about her choice - we are not saying, "Do not have the debate"; we are saying, "Give her 100 m so she can access her healthcare services". That is it. That is all we are doing.
Furthermore, I have asked my officials to engage with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science such that if there is a higher education authority whereby, through the layout of its campus, it potentially becomes an issue in terms of having the kind of debates we must have in our society and in our colleges, we would work with the colleges to that effect.
The Minister's reply has left me with many questions. I am surprised at the extent of it. I will start by keeping it logical. Not all of what is in this Bill is equally bad. Section 2 states that a person shall not, without lawful authority, in a safe access zone, engage in conduct that is likely to obstruct or impede another person from accessing a relevant healthcare premises.
I can support that. Any reasonable person would. Nobody is in favour of anybody being obstructed or impeded.
Let us be clear: what is effected here is subsection (2) of section 2, which is that "a person shall not, in a [so-called] safe access zone ... communicate material to the public or a section of the public in a manner that is likely to influence the decision of another person in relation to availing of, or providing, termination of pregnancy services". Therefore, if somebody on a university campus or who is within 100 m, or does not know they are within 100 m, of a facility where people can access abortion has a placard that says abortion is wrong or "Thinking of abortion; we can help" or "Abortion stops a beating heart" or "Did you know that the beginnings of a heartbeat are developed at six weeks" or any other factual idea that is intended just to prompt further consideration of this issue, or even if that placard has something that might communicate a message to a person in support of an abortion, such as "Abortion is a woman's choice" or such phrases like that, either side of the argument can be caught by this legislation, which is, no matter how you attempt to slice and dice it, a clamping down on free speech. We are not just talking about obstructing or impeding but about communicating material to the public or a section of the public. It does not have to be directed at anybody or at any particular moment or situation.
We need to be honest. There is no need for this legislation for one very simple reason: we do not have abortion clinics in Ireland. Corruptly, the Government of the day introduced abortion in a way that has corrupted the medical profession by putting direct or indirect pressure on doctors to be involved-----
Will you speak to the amendment?
I am, because this is all part of-----
You are straying off now in talking about the legislation-----
I am trying not to. We are talking about a life-and-death issue, a Chathaoirligh Gníomhaigh.
Try to stick to the amendment, Senator.
I will, and I do not intend to take longer than is necessary. My colleague, Senator McDowell, had to take considerably longer recently on the referendum legislation, which was also rushed through. I will do my best to keep to the point.
My point is that we do not have abortion clinics in Ireland. Therefore, if a person in any given situation wants to promote or get out a pro-life message or encourage or offer help to somebody, and we are told, and we all agree, that abortion is never an easy decision, the logic being that anybody who has a bit of compassion or practical support to offer would want to give a person contemplating an abortion every chance to think this through carefully - of course, we have a Government that is not interested in helping people think things through carefully on this issue - and help that person not make a decision that is very often associated with negative mental health consequences in some cases and for certain categories of women, and that is evidenced because there is enough information out there about the possibility of abortion regret, if such a person wants to promote that message, the fact is we do not have direct and precise knowledge of where abortions are taking place. We may know that certain hospitals are doing it, but a person who holds up a placard in a street and there is a GP surgery down the road does not know whether that person is a conscientious objector or whether abortions are being facilitated in that clinic. As far as I can see, they are caught by the law if they are unlucky enough that that premises does. That is why this legislation is so intolerant. It is not about stopping people from upsetting particular people. It is about crushing dissent and stopping people from expressing reasonable messages under pain of the possibility that there may be an abortion provided within 100 m of them which they may not even know and they are on the wrong side of the law. That is just one of the reasons I think this legislation is probably not in harmony with our Constitution. In effect, it puts the onus of proof, as I see it, and the Minister may correct me if I am wrong, on the person communicating the message. That is one problem.
This has all been presented with great gratitude to a lobby group. The Minister talked about reports of people being harassed. Is he willing to read those into the record here today? I would be delighted if he could. He talks about attempts to coerce. Is he willing to read that into the record here today?
Is the Minister willing to prove it with information we can rely on as coming from a reputable and unbiased source? I see the Minister’s official very helpfully handing him a note on that, but it better be something more than the mere claims of a lobby group. As far as I am aware, and the Minister might correct me if I am if I am wrong, we have not yet to my knowledge heard the Garda Commissioner resile from his earlier statement. I see the officials are consulting carefully on this because I suspect this is one of those bits of legislation that is more driven by lobby groups than by the careful neutral scrutiny one expects from the permanent Government. We have not yet heard the Garda Commissioner resile from the earlier statement that the laws in place - public order laws, etc. - were adequate to deal with any problems. As I recall, the Garda Commissioner's communication on this issue was one of reassurance there was not a problem arising with regard to this issue.
As far as I am aware, we have not heard from any hospital authority. I am open to being corrected and I will happily correct my argument any day of the week. There are many arguments against this legislation and I want to be 100% accurate in what I say, so the Minister might please help me. This is a Government that is short on specifics when it comes to pushing ideology, but I am open to hearing some specifics. Has any public health provider or any hospital called for this legislation as a matter of urgency or at all? If they did, I missed it. Everything I have heard so far has been to the effect there is not actually a problem arising. I think every decent, honourable citizen in this country knows this. They know it is probably a very small number of people who feel motivated to witness to the rights of the unborn by going out, perhaps in bad weather or otherwise, with a placard. If it is anything that would impede or obstruct, I will accept any law that prevents that. If it is anything that could be in breach of public order legislation, let us remember what public order legislation says. It uses words like "threatening", "abusive", "indecent" or "obscene" and phrases such as likely to or intending to cause a breach of the peace, if memory serves. There is good law in place for the type of people who deserve a kick up the behind from the forces of law and order.
This is about something totally different, however. This is about something quite unprecedented, which is the crushing of dissent, even on university campuses. The Minister spoke about what he expects of higher education institutions. He might please correct me again if I am wrong. We are all across so many different issues these days it is hard to stay up to date, but I do not see any reference to any particular acknowledgement of the needs or specific circumstances of higher education institutions in this Bill. Am I wrong? What I do see in section 3(1) is that nothing "shall prohibit a person from engaging in lawful protest ... within 100 metres of an entrance to either House of the Oireachtas". Therefore, it can be done here, provided it is not directed at a specific person or specific healthcare premises or person accessing it. There we see the compromise. There we see the recognition of the social good of free speech in our society, and that it would be unthinkable to prevent a person from protesting outside of the Houses of the Oireachtas, even if there is an abortion provider within 100 m of it. We accept the principle that there is a vital importance to free speech and the free communication of ideas in our society.
The Minister gave us this lame comment then that there may be an issue because of the layout of the particular university campus. I do not want to mention specific universities or institutes of higher education because I do not know whether they will be providing abortion services. I would hope they would not. I repeat what I said before, that every decent citizen in this country should respectfully, cogently, courteously and repeatedly encourage anybody involved in healthcare to see that abortion is not healthcare. It kills a little emerging human being. That reality is never going to change, however much this Government and its NGO supporters and insiders try to deny it. That is the reality. It is vital that people feel free to say that in our society, and never coercively or insultingly. You are never going to win an argument by being insulting anyway. It should not be done judgmentally. However, every citizen is entitled to judge that abortion is not bona fide healthcare because it kills a little child in the womb.
That is a fact that will never change as long as abortion remains legal. It is a violation of human rights of the most fundamental kind. It makes a nonsense of any person's, political party's or institution's claim to support human rights if it tolerates the killing of the most innocent in our society. There is always a better way.
That is the principle that motivates some brave souls to go out sometimes with a placard to offer help. Have I ever done it myself? No, because I have a public role as a politician and can make my views known in other ways. Do I favour high drama, offensive and upsetting stuff? No. It is not my style and I do not think it is the style of most people. Everybody, however courteous, thoughtful, or evidence-based their message may be, is caught by this unique and unprecedented piece of legislation. It is as though the Government and its NGO supporters of sorts would not like it to ever happen that a person might have second thoughts before going in and organising an abortion for themselves. That there would be even a smile, a gesture or an offer of another way or possibility. Think of the countless people who are alive today because there was somebody to support them, that there was somebody who said there was a better way, and that there was somebody who said, "We can help you and your child." There are people, musical artists and so on and great stuff online and elsewhere about people who are alive today because somebody offered support to their vulnerable parent. That is the type of messaging the Minister and his Government want to abolish, whether it happens to be accidentally or otherwise - correct me if I am wrong about the accidentally or otherwise bit - within 100 m of an abortion facility.
If there were abortion clinics in this country where one knew that a person going in was accessing an abortion, one could make a case that freedom of speech could stop short of directly targeting that person with a message. Even that would be suspect as regards silent messaging - for example, abortion is not the solution and we can offer better help. However, that is not what is going on here. People may very well hold a placard outside a hospital, that I grant you, and they may know it is a hospital where abortions are being provided. However, countless people are going into that hospital by the minute and, therefore, nobody needs to feel targeted by anybody's message because they are not being. Nobody knows who the other person is or what situation they are in. All of that reality, which is the reality not the pretend stuff we get from the Government and the people pushing this, points that we err on the side of freedom of speech because the likelihood is that nobody knows who anybody else is in this situation. Nobody knows when they see somebody going into a hospital whether they are going in for an abortion or to have something done with their varicose veins or whatever it is. That is the reality. There is not this vulnerability of individuals to other's messaging. The unpleasant messaging can be caught with the public order legislation - threatening, abusive, indecent, obscene. What is wrong with helpful? What is wrong with a helpful message? What is wrong with a message that is well-intended, even if it is not welcome - for example, there is a better solution, we can offer you counselling or we can offer you practical support - or factual messaging?
Ireland's abortion rates have skyrocketed since it was legislated for in 2018. All of that kind of messaging should be perfectly legitimate and it should be especially legitimate in a third level institution.
I do not recall whether in my own alma mater, University College Galway, which has gone through two name changes since I was there, whether the health centre was within 100 m of the O' Flaherty Theatre where we debated abortion and a million other things in the Lit and Deb of a Thursday night. What if it were or what if it was in some other college? Why is there an allergy on the part of the Government to engage in any way with the third of the people who voted to protect the lives of unborn children in the 2018 referendum? Why is there an allergy to any toleration of the idea that even if abortion is to be legal we should still try to discourage it because it kills an innocent human being in their early stage of life? Why is there not some kind of openness? Who is it that has the Government by the short and curlies to such an extent that it dares not even suggest that abortion can every be regrettable? What is happening is disgusting. This groupthink imposed from the top is disgusting.
It is the same as the groupthink we are seeing on many other issues, from hate speech legislation to the rushing of the referendum proposals and so on. I will not continue on that topic; to do so would definitely be off the point.
I ask the Senator to stick to the amendment we are discussing.
I will. That was just a passing comment. The parallels, in terms of how closed the Government is these days to voices of dissent on serious and important issues, will not be lost on people. This legislation is about crushing dissent.
The Minister talks about Ireland being the most progressive and advanced in the area of healthcare and women's healthcare. I would love for that to be the case, but what is progressive about killing a little child? Why is it acceptable to present abortion as healthcare simply because he has tied up public money in the provision of this dubious service, implicated medics and put doctors under pressure, direct or indirect, such that even if they object themselves, they must, under the law at the moment, be in some way involved in the treadmill of it by referring to others? Why was there that desire to stitch it up so that as many people as possible are implicated in this? Will the Minister read serious, objective and credible reports rather than unverified reports from, shall we say, unscrutinised lobby groups that do not always tell the truth, do not have objective evidence to back up their case and seek to crush dissent on abortion in any way they can? Can the Minister give us evidence of attempts to coerce? It is a hell of an accusation for a Minister of the Government to make. If this was any other Minister talking about another issue involving reports of coercion and people being obstructed - I do not know if the Minister used the word "intimidated" today - we would have chapter and verse. We would be told the Garda expressed a worry, as did the HSE and the Medical Council. The big claim would be backed up by evidence from credible sources. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, although his practice up to now has been to disregard questions and objections and not to answer the substance. If he departs from that practice today, I will be grateful for that much at least.
I do not see a reference to higher education authorities in the Bill. I see a vague promise that, to quote The Beatles, "We can work it out." That is not good enough in legislation going before these Houses. The Minister needs to think more carefully about how important freedom of speech is in our country, especially on university campuses. This is an issue to which we will have to return on Report Stage if the Minister does not do so. That is all I have to say. I regret the Government's direction of travel but I at least hope to hear some facts from the Minister in the next few minutes.
Senator Keogan wishes to speak to the amendment.
I, too, would like to hear what evidence the Minister has. It is clear that the evidence he says is available has been manufactured by abortion activists. The UL Hospitals Group in Limerick has put on record that no complaints have been made from patients about any protesters in the wake of the allegation-----
Senator, are you speaking to the amendment?
The same goes for the Cork hospital-----
Senator, are you speaking to the amendment?
I am speaking to the amendment. I, too, would like to hear from the Minister.
The amendment relates to higher education authorities. Does the Minister wish to respond?
I do, please, Acting Chairperson. It did not take very long for the veil to drop and to dispense with any concept of mutual respect, did it? I find it extraordinary that Senator Mullen stood up and suggested that we need to be able to debate in here without insulting people. He has insulted every woman in Ireland.
No, I have not.
He has insulted every GP, he has insulted every nurse, he has insulted everyone who works in the healthcare services. I do not mind him insulting the Government; that is fine, it is part of what we do in here. To suggest, however, that we should debate without insulting people and then stand up-----
Where is the insult?
Through the Chair, Senator.
-----and insult every woman in this country, as he has, it really does take some neck. I will address two of the points he raised.
Can someone commit an offence inadvertently? No. It is very clear in the Bill that is the point of the Garda warning. Now, of course, we come to your claim that none of this is happening, women are not being intimidated. This country has a dark history when it comes to women's healthcare. It has a dark, disgraceful history when it comes to women's reproductive health and the decades of outrageous behaviour orchestrated between the church and the State. For you to stand up here and say none of this is happening, that these women, the advocacy groups, the doctors I talk and the HSE, particularly in its pre-legislative submission, are all lying harks back to decades ago when people were saying not to worry about what was going on in those laundries. It was a case of: "It is fine, they are just washing sheets. Do not mind what is going on with these women moving to London. Do not worry about any of that. Let us not worry about these women and these babies who have disappeared from our country. It is all false. There is nothing to see here, move on." The idea that women are lying about being intimidated and the idea that you would suggest that they are lying about their testimony with regard to being intimidated is disgraceful. The idea that you would suggest that the doctors who talk to me about what is going on outside their surgeries are liars and that they are manufacturing this is absolutely disgraceful. It is not surprising, but it is disgraceful. I reject utterly----
You are the one who is lying now.
-----an Ireland where anyone would turn to women and say, "We do not believe you; you must be lying." It is a disgrace. Those kinds of accusations have no place in today's Ireland. We have a dark history in this country, and we need to be cognisant of that when we talk about safe access to healthcare for women because, by God, we did not have it for a very long time throughout our history.
Now, let us talk about your insistence on being right up in women's faces in the universities when they want to access health services. I went to UCD. Here is the deal. You can take your placards and all of those awful insinuations you are making about women trying to access health services and you can stand on the bridge on the N11 if you want. No problem. You can stand there and you can wave your placards around to your heart's content. You can come into UCD and you can wave your placards around to your heart's content. You can go up to the engineering block, which is where I was educated, and you can march around it in circles with your placards all day and all night. In fact, you can go to the lake and you can take your placards out into the lake on little boats if you want. Nothing in this legislation impedes you from doing so because none of those areas is within 100 modest steps of the health centre. All we are asking is that when you have got your placards on the bridge, and you have got your placards at the entrance and you have got your placards at the engineering block and you have got your placards at the lake, that you do not come within 100 steps of the health centre where women are accessing legal health services. If you have a problem with leaving women the hell alone within 100 steps of them trying to access a health service, then tough. We will put this to a vote. I will be very happy to see how Seanad Éireann votes on this, but under no circumstances will I be accepting these amendments.
Senator Mullen, do you wish to respond?
Yes, please.
Again, I remind you that you cannot accuse the Minister of lying.
Yes, although I have to say he came very close there. First of all, Minister, your strategy here is to come out fighting and to put on the false umbrage of the wronged politician. I did not insult you personally but I am certainly insulting what you are doing because it is the worst kind of public service to seek to crush dissent on a life-and-death issue in the way that you are doing. Shame on you, the Government and everybody involved with this tawdry legislation, which, I believe, may well be unconstitutional.
Second, I insulted no woman. Anybody I know who has ever spoken up for the rights of the unborn child has always done so in ways that have sought to make the point clearly that the target of opposition to abortion should never be a woman, particularly as there may be a variety of circumstances that underlie an unexpected pregnancy and a person's response to it. Many of us who have engaged on this issue, perhaps for longer than the Minister has done, have always understood that abortion is something that does no favours to women and that the real target of the law here should be the abortionist, be they doctors or other providers of this terrible act. I do not see how the Minister can say I have insulted every woman in the country. It is typical of, as I said, his bluff and bluster on this issue when I know countless women who voted against repeal because they wanted to protect unborn girl children as well as unborn boy children. I do not believe Senator Keogan feels insulted by what I have to say.
The Minister's strategy is to come in here and by implication accuse me and other opponents of this legislation of being on board with other forms of oppression that have existed down through the years and which were undoubtedly to be condemned. He managed to bring up the Magdalen laundries, for example, and that is a strategy. How ironic. He talked about the women and babies who disappeared from our country. How ironic that the Minister should regret the disappearance of women and babies from our country in the past and how tragic that he does not see the irony that he and the Government are on board with disappearing babies in the ultimate way. We have seen since repeal a major increase in the annual incidence of abortion. I was trying to estimate it using figures the Government of the day gave before abortion was legalised and the figures we now know. There has been an increase of between 40% and 75%. That is a human rights crisis by anybody's standards. It shows type of groupthink, doublethink, doublespeak and Orwellian doublespeak being used when the Minister can put on the moral cloak and state his regret about the disappearance of babies from our country in the past while doing his utmost to ensure that there are no second thoughts to be had about abortion now. The Minister accuses me of insulting people - the doctors he did not name and the women he did not name - and saying they are liars. To my mind, that came very close to telling a lie because, first of all, I did not ever suggest that there are not people who make allegations here.
They are confused, are they?
Yes, and sometimes they are campaigners not being honest, Minister, and you are not being honest if you deny that.
The doctors are confused, are they?
What you have failed, Minister, to acknowledge-----
Are the GPs confused?
Senator, through the Chair.
What you have failed to acknowledge is what I said, which is you have not had a single complaint, or else you would have told us by now, from a reputable health-providing institution.
Really? Doctors are not-----
You have failed to acknowledge-----
Senator, through the Chair and I remind you as well that you are not allowed to name people-----
Yes.
-----in the Chamber.
Thank you, Acting Chair.
That is not true when it comes to giving evidence for a point of view that you hold. Say, for example, the Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, said that there is a lacuna in our law and that we need to legislate because there is a real danger of people being intimidated when they access abortion facilities. The opposite was the message we got. If Mr. Harris had said it, it would be remiss of the Minister not to quote him chapter and verse. The rule against naming people in this House has to do with insulting them or calling their integrity or behaviour into question.
Or using a member of the public's name.
It is not an absolute rule. I can quote William Butler Yeats, and it is not just because he is dead. Sometimes it is entirely appropriate to quote somebody. I challenge the Minister to quote anybody who is not a campaigner in one way or another for extended abortion rights, including members of the medical profession, or somebody who has skin in the game.
However, what he has failed to do is to quote any civil authority or any healthcare institution and I find that remarkable. With almost admirable brass neck, he accuses me then of making liars of people. To be clear, I am not denying for one moment that the Minister has received complaints from abortion advocates. That is part of the campaign. However, I have asked him to name names and to give clear evidence so that we can-----
Again, Senator, I do not think members of the public can be named, particularly around-----
If somebody writes a letter and says, "Dear Minister, my name is Joe Bloggs and on the blank day of blank, the following happened. Please use this when bringing forward your legislation.", or "Dear Minister, we represent the such and such organisation or we are the blank hospital of the blank region of the country and at a meeting on the blank day of blank, it was recommended that we ask the Minister to bring forward safe access zones legislation", that is my point. The Minister has not given chapter and verse on the evidence case and that has been the strategy all along with this legislation. It is to get complaints that we cannot properly test. It is not clear who is involved, except in one case I know of where there was a named campaigning organisation, and we are invited then to accept all of that as gospel and as evidence that there is something really bad and nasty going on in our country when ordinary people know the reality.
There is a small group of people who express their opposition to abortion from time to time, which they are entitled to do, but the Minister's disingenuous approach is brought out clearly when he attempts to stamp me down for wanting people to be able to be in the face of women in universities. Nobody ever mentioned anybody being in a position to approach anybody, for example, if they were waiting outside the health unit, or anything like that. The case we have put simply, and which the Minister is not honestly addressing, is that in reality, there may be situations where a debate is being organised on a campus and an activist group says it cannot be in a certain place because there is a health facility within 100 m. My point is that type of stuff is not acceptable on a university or a third level campus, not least because that is the very activism that we are seeing on a range of issues internationally on international campuses where debate is closed down. People try to shut down debates, prevent them from happening and prevent the free exchange of ideas. The Minister's answer to that is that it is okay for some lunatic to stand on the bridge at the N11 as though that satisfied his obligation as a Minister in a democratic society to support and defend the free exchange of ideas. Newman's idea of the university is clearly a long way from the Minister's ideas about what should be permissible in a university.
I will accept one point he made which is that there is a possibility that a garda who believes with reasonable cause that a person is engaging in particular conduct can warn them. I accept that as a legitimate response to the question but I note the following. We have seen too much already of the gardaí in this country going up to people and saying, "You cannot really say this, you know". I have no problem, as I said, with public order legislation. In fact, I would like to see it being implemented more in cases of threatening, abusive, insulting and obscene behaviour. However, there was that recent experience of Billboard Chris, the campaigner on Grafton Street, who had a sandwich board on him basically saying that puberty blockers hurt children and should not be allowed. He was quite rightly making the point that we should not be interfering with children's health on the grounds of transgender ideology. He was the one, despite the fact he was uttering a perfectly sane and sensible sentiment and was not picking a fight with anybody, who was approached by a garda. This is the point Senator Keoghan, Senator McDowell, myself and others have been making about the hate speech legislation, which is that it is the process that becomes the punishment.
In regard to the Minister's idea of a solution to this, let us consider a 65-year-old pensioner who has a rosary in her hand. It is not my style of messaging but, you know what, I defend that person's right to engage in that style of messaging. Let us say they are praying silently within 60 m of a door of an institution where abortions are being carried out.
The Minister's idea of a democratic society is one where a garda half her age and twice her size can come up to her and say "You need to move on because there are abortions going on there and we have had a complaint from a doctor in that surgery 60 m away. You need to move on now because you are breaking the law." That is how the process becomes the punishment. It is the intimidation and the power of the State, but it is presented as though the act of protest here is an act of the powerful against the powerless. In reality, the powerless are sometimes the people who only have their voice, their placard or even their rosary beads, if that is what they choose, to speak against something that the State is paying for and that the might of the State is behind that all of the oh-so-articulate and highly PR trained Ministers, to a man and woman, impose on us on our television screens and radios. We are asked to believe that it is that person protesting who is the powerful oppressing one, when, in fact, that is the person who represented a minority when it came to the decision to repeal the eighth amendment, although I suspect that there are many people who are horrified at what is happening now and who may very well have voted for repeal. We are asked to believe that is the person who should be nudged on by a garda. Where is the precedent and the parallel for anything like this when it comes to the incursion on free speech in a democratic society?
The Minister has not answered my questions. He has sought to go on the offensive by insulting me and by pretending that I have insulted women. I have insulted no woman. I have strongly criticised the Government and some of the campaigning groups, which I am entitled to do. What I am saying is backed up by evidence of what I know they do. I criticise any person who would deny that people have a right to stand up for the rights of both mother and child, but I do not insult anybody. I used no language of insult, but I used the strongest criticism of the Minister and the Government. I reiterate that the Minister has failed to provide the name of any reputable, objective, credible healthcare-providing organisation. He has failed to provide the name or a quotation from any civil authority.
That is vastly different from what would happen if the Government was seeking to limit free speech in any other area to the extent that it is doing with this legislation. The Minister would be making all sorts of excuses by reference to what various quangos and other bodies were saying and urging upon him, but what we have here is a Government that has been captured by activists. Professor Donal O'Shea and others have said that politicians and the HSE have been captured by activists in the whole area of transgender activism, in particular in terms of self-identification, children and so on, and we are seeing the same capture here. We saw it in the very flawed report on the so-called independent three-year review on abortion, which has been criticised within the health committee recently. We are seeing a classic example here.
Senator Mullen is deviating slightly from the amendment.
I am finishing now. The Government is pushing legislation at the behest of an invisible few. It does not have the slightest respect for the electorate. If the Minister did, he would be giving us chapter and verse. He would be showing us the Government's own studies as to whether this was in fact a problem. He would be bringing forward evidence of his careful consultation with the Garda and civil and healthcare authorities, but he has done none of this. He is the one who is being brazen, coming in here today without even giving us the courtesy of a direct quotation from any one person, and without showing any evidence that he has tried to see if there is another side to this. He has brought forward this legislation, which restricts free speech in the way that it does.
I will respond briefly to the debate so far. I promise that I will be brief. First, on the issue of the higher education campuses, the fact is that under this legislation there is no campus where any such debate that Senator Mullen wants to take place cannot take place.
It does not prevent that in any way. What it does is prevent anyone wishing to approach a centre for private healthcare from being harassed. The second key point is that, unlike normal public order legislation, which responds when something happens, the idea behind the Bill is to prevent that harassment taking place. The reason for the Bill is that we know what has happened in respect of far-right, fanatical, anti-choice protestors, not just in this country but around the world. We are under no illusions that it has happened here and will continue to happen here. The idea that Senator Mullen wants the Minister to supply names is, frankly, ridiculous.
I will make a final point, which I hope the Minister will take in the right spirit. He and I agree on virtually nothing these days, but we agree on this. The whole point of the Bill is that these protestors want to target individuals. Otherwise, they would protest anywhere outside the 100 m. There would be nothing wrong with that. What the Senator wants to do is target those people accessing private healthcare. It is of course about subtle coercion and intimidation. That is why we need the legislation.
How stands amendment No. 1?
I want to respond to Senator Gavan. It is interesting how the Minister and now Senator Gavan reach for words that, as far as I know, are not in the Bill. Senator Gavan talked about the Bill preventing people from being harassed. I am in favour of preventing people from being harassed, but the word "harass" is not defined in the Bill because it is not in it.
Will the Senator speak to the amendment? With the greatest respect, we are not talking about the overall Bill.
It should be borne in mind that Senator Gavan is responding to the issues I raised in support of my amendment so I have to answer that. As I said, there is nothing objectionable about preventing conduct that is likely to obstruct or impede, or having the intent to obstruct or impede, another person. The problem is section 2(2) because the threshold is very low.
We are not discussing section 2. The Senator knows the rules as well as I do. We are discussing amendment No. 1 to section 1.
The reason-----
We will get to section 2.
I do not know about that.
The reason we have to have this protection for free speech in higher education institutions is not so that students, lecturers or guest speakers can obstruct or impede somebody else from accessing abortion services. It is not to enable them to harass anybody. It is to enable them to communicate material to the public, or a section of the public, in a manner that is likely to influence the decision of another person.
Senator Gavan talked about targeting. I accept there may be cases where a person is standing within 50 m of the Rotunda Hospital. That person may have multiple motivations, including hoping to persuade members of the public that it really is a sad thing that abortions are going on in an institution that is supposed to save and protect life. That individual may have it in his or heart that it would be great if somebody passing, who was thinking of having an abortion, but maybe because of a poster that individual is holding, which states there is always somebody there to help and there is a better way, the person passing might change her mind. That is not targeting. It may be about hoping that might be a side effect of what the protestor might be doing, but it is not the only reason he or she is there. The reason that protestor is mainly there is not to target anybody. It is to draw the link in the public mind between the fact that abortions, these violations of human life and human dignity, are going on in a State-funded institution. The Senator accidentally mentioned private healthcare. If only it were just private healthcare. The taxpayer, whether he or she agrees with abortion or not, is bankrolling every single death that takes place in this country through abortion.
I have not spoken to any of these protestors. I am a little like the Minister in that way. I may or may not have spoken to anybody who has concerns in this area. I believe the Minister has heard from people who object to any kind of display. As far as I know, those are the only people the Minister is interested in talking to because he has always-----
The Senator is deviating from the amendment.
-----refused to talk to pro-life people.
The point I am making is this. A person who may be communicating, which is what we are talking about, material to the public or a section of a public may not have it in his or her contemplation at all to address his or her point or offer of help to anybody who in that moment might be going to an abortion clinic.
They might be hoping that the person who sees it and who might be in a crisis pregnancy in six months' time would know that there is an organisation there that will give a different kind of help to the help the Government wants to give. It is the relative proximity to the institution that makes sense for them to be making the point. If it could be shown that they must inevitably know the person who sees that is the person accessing the service, you get closer to some kind of relationship where a person might feel harassed or intimidated but it is all but impossible given the way abortion has been legalised and is being provided in the country, which is what makes this legislation so patently disingenuous in its intent and scope.
The point is that a person in a democracy must be allowed communicate material to the people and whether it causes them to support or oppose abortion or eventually chose abortion or chose not to have an abortion, it should be possible. That is not harassment. That is not targeting. It is precisely the problem - the Government is criminalising the ordinary communication of ideas. What the Minister has being doing here today by talking about being in the face of somebody is evoking the type of thing that might happen in other jurisdictions, such as the US where people are basically crossing the threshold into abortion clinics and people are loudly and clamorously talking at them. I get that there are issues if that became anything that impedes, harasses or, I go back to public order, threatens, abuses and insults and is obscene. That is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about a much more casual interference with a free and honest expression of ideas by people in good faith who are not out to be in anybody's face. The only point that I accept from the Minister so far this afternoon is that there is the possibility of the Garda warning. I accept that point but I would point out to him that this is precisely where the process can become the punishment so easily and I gave that example. I will not reiterate what I said there.
Let us be honest here. I do not know whether Sinn Féin agrees or disagrees with it. It makes a lot of noise about disagreeing with the Government but when it comes to some of the bad stuff happening in this country, it seems to be in lock step with it. The only opposition these days seems-----
I do not think Sinn Féin was mentioned in the amendment.
The only opposition on a range of issues these days seems to coming from Independents, particularly in this House. I ask Senator Gavan to at least reflect on whether this is about harassment because if it was about harassment, you would have every single person on board here but it is not.
Really?
Yes really. I think I have a better record than many people in the Senator's party about never ever harassing people and not supporting harassment in any way, shape or form. Sinn Féin has not been angels in the world of social media, as I think we all know.
We are discussing the amendment not individual-----
Sinn Féin has been wronged too on occasions but as an Independent, I will claim the space to-----
We do not need the Senator to defend us.
I will claim the space as an Independent to say that I do not need to apologise for my credentials to Sinn Féin or anybody else about my opposition to harassment of any kind.
The Senator is here longer than I am and knows the rules better than I do. We are discussing the amendment.
We are on the word Senator Gavan used in response to my amendment, which was that this is about preventing people from being harassed. I said that if that was all it was about, we would all be on board with it. He put that in issue as though I was some kind of apologist for harassment, which I have never been and never will be. I will not even ask him to withdraw it because that is just playing silly parliamentary games. We are talking about a life-and-death issue here. The person who is most harassed here is the unborn child-----
It is the woman.
Well where there is any harassment of women, shame on those involved in it but the person who pays the biggest price for what is going on here is the unborn child, who does not get to see the light of day. I appeal to people to rediscover their sense of compassion and human fraternity around that issue.
I thank Senator Mullen for putting it so eloquently.
As far as I can see, this section is a bit like the tail wagging the dog because the Minister has provided no evidence. There is no evidence whatsoever from the Garda Commissioner regarding allegations that have been made by a certain lobby group. The Minister has produced no evidence in respect of any hospital to indicate that inappropriate protests were taking place outside these medical centres. There is no evidence from any hospital or any health centre. Where is the evidence? It is not good enough for the Minister to come into this Chamber and say that he does not need to give names. Are there organisations out there? Are there hospitals out there? Are there doctors out there? Did the Garda Commissioner tell the Minister something? I ask because at a meeting of the joint committee, the Garda Commissioner clearly said it was not happening. As well as that, there is already legislation in place, namely, the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994, which prevents anyone from blocking a doorway to a healthcare centre. The legislation is already there-----
We are dealing with amendment No. 1.
The Minister got up-----
The rules are the rules.
Earlier, the Minister gave the impression that the Government is the guardian of women's healthcare in this country. He spoke of the failings of previous Governments. Fianna Fáil has been in government for most of the past 100 years. Fianna Fáil was there during the issues relating to cervical cancer. Fianna Fáil was there last week, when we almost lost-----
This is of no relevance to the amendment we are discussing.
The, Minister-----
Please do not ignore the Chair, Senator.
-----has been-----
In all honesty, he has been a very good Minister for women’s health-----
Do not ignore the Chair, Senator Keogan.
-----but this is a step too far in the context of civil rights and protesting, particularly if people decide they want to protest peacefully and calmly outside health centres.
Amendment put and declared lost.
Can I ask for the assistance of the of the secretariat? If I press this amendment in the way I have just done, may I resubmit it for Report Stage?
It has been defeated now. If you had withdrawn it with a view to-----
So, I cannot resubmit it. That accords with my reflection. I thank the Chair.
We will move on to amendment No. 2.
I move amendment No. 2:
In page 4, line 19, after “practitioner” to insert the following:
“(other than a general practitioner who has notified the Minister that the practitioner does not wish the premises at which he or she provides healthcare services to be deemed, for the purposes of this Act, to be a relevant healthcare premises)”.
This amendment refers to the definition of “relevant healthcare provider” as meaning a general practitioner. It excludes from that definition a general practitioner who has notified the Minister that he or she does not wish the premises at which he or she provides healthcare services to be deemed, for the purposes of this legislation, to be a relevant healthcare premises.
If I were to try to characterise this amendment, I suppose I would call it the “not in my name” amendment. When the abortion legislation was brought in, there was some acknowledgement, as there is now, of the issue of conscientious objection, whereby healthcare practitioners do not need to be involved in the provision of abortions. Why would a healthcare practitioner not want to be involved in providing abortions? Of course, the obvious answer to that is that they have a conscientious objection. What is a conscientious objection? We sometimes think of it as a means through which we can let a religious person off the hook from getting involved in something their faith says is wrong. There is no doubt that situation is included or that it is sometimes the essence of a person's conscientious objection. When it comes to abortion, however, which involves the intentional, procured destruction of human life, there are many people who would not attribute their conscientious objection to any religious motive at all. They would say it is a matter of human decency that everybody gets to have a shot at life. There is always a better solution than that which involves the ending of a life. There is always other help that can be given that will save a life. I am not speaking of the sad and tragic situations where a medical intervention is needed where an unborn baby cannot be saved. That is not at issue at all. I refer to the wilful, voluntary and unnecessary ending of a human life. There are many people, as I said, who would not invoke any kind of religious values. In fact, one atheist friend said to me recently that a person who is an atheist should be more against abortion and should be more pro-life than anybody else because if this world is all there is, what could be meaner than to dispatch another human being into nothingness? This is an interesting philosophical view. The person to whom I refer put it in more graphic terms.
The fact is, however, that in some cases, those who oppose the provision of abortion, do not even ascribe it to a conscience per se. They might refer to it as an ethical objection or as a professional objection because, as I said earlier, abortion is not unconnected to adverse consequences. We know about the adverse consequences for the child who dies, but it is not unconnected to adverse consequences for women as well. It is not unconnected to coercive activities by men. Indeed, one of the issues that I and others have raised with the Minister is the whole problem of telemedicine being used in the accessing and provision of abortions. It can mask coercive behaviour of men towards women, both those who are underage and overage, forcing them to have abortions without having scrutiny over what is going on, etc.
There are many reasons to have a professional objection to abortion and, of course, there are many reasons to have a social objection to abortion. One of the issues is that quite a few medical professionals have an ethical or professional objection to abortion. How many are there? Are they a minority or the majority? I do not know. They are certainly an extremely large minority at the very least because it is actually a very small number of the overall cohort of doctors in this country that is involved or wants to be involved in the provision of abortions. I think that says a great deal.
A small number of people are engaging in this activity, which is called everything from healthcare to abortion care to all of those dishonest, sanitising phrases that mask the idea that an innocent human creature is being snuffed out. Yet, it is probably the case that the great majority of doctors in this country - whether they oppose abortion in every case or not and I do not know that - do not want to have hand, act or part in the ending of an innocent human life. I do not think I am exaggerating there. If the Minister is going to surprise me with some stats on this, I would nearly go up and shake his hand at this stage. An accurate statistic has not been presented to me about anything, but it seems to me that most doctors do not want anything to do with this.
There is a question then about how they are provided for because under existing law, those doctors are required to transfer. This is where a person comes to them seeking an abortion and they have an ethical or professional objection to this, they do not believe it is good healthcare, they think they are being caught up in the killing of an innocent and all of that. They are expected under the law to transfer because this is now legally available and, indeed, State-funded whether the taxpayer in question likes it or not. They are required to transfer to another practitioner or provider.
One would think that for something as controversial as abortion the State would not put the burden on somebody who has an ethical or professional objection to it for being responsible for transferring somebody to where the deed would be done. If I believe I am doing something wrong and I am asked do something, and I believe it would be wrong of me to it, if I am allowed to say that, to believe it and to abstain accordingly, the logic of that should be that I would not be forced to just pass the person on to somebody else who will do what is wrong, especially when there are other avenues available to the State to make sure that a service that is legally available should be accessible. I get that point, if it is legally available in the State and given the model the State has chosen where it chooses to endorse abortion as a good thing, to pay for it and not to have any discussion or discouragement of it. That is where we are at. I lament that fact, but if that is the State's position, I can see how it would be the logic of the State to say that it must make sure that anybody who wants it can access it. However, there are other ways to achieve that, for example, by the State advertising a central point of information where a person may access that service.
I know from my involvement with the committee on assisted dying, which is looking at euthanasia and assisted suicide, that in jurisdictions like New Zealand, doctors and other healthcare workers who do not want to be involved in the provision of euthanasia or assisted suicide are not required to pass a person on to somebody who will help them because that is seen as implicating them. It would be a very healthy thing if that thinking from New Zealand in the context of euthanasia were to be explored here in Ireland so that medical people - healthcare workers and others - are not implicated in abortion, even to the extent of having to transfer a person to somebody else who will give that service when, as I said, there are other means available to the State to ensure that the person can get that service.
This is why, underlying a lot of what has gone on here in recent years, there is intolerance. It is not enough that abortion would be available or that the taxpayer, whether pro-life, pro-abortion, pro-choice or whatever you want to call it, have to bankroll it. Dissent must not be allowed. The people, the third of the voters who voted against this because it is unjust, are effectively expected to go under a rock, but they are not under a rock, they are out there. They still believe that abortion is unjust, and many of them are medical and healthcare professionals. There is an issue that needs to be addressed about the way in which their ethical and professional conscientious objection is addressed. At the very least, it adds insult to injury, or would add insult to injury for these people. Let us say they are in a clinic that is providing abortions or somebody within the clinic is providing abortions, but unlike the Government, they respect that there are two sides to it and that they have people perhaps within their GP clinic who do not agree with abortion. They might say that some staff may provide this service, but we do not want our provision of this service to be used as the means or the instrument to preventing another person from having their say on the matter, 80 yd from here. That is what this amendment seeks to do. It seeks to facilitate the genuinely liberal person who, whether they are providing abortions or not in their GP service, do not want their location to be the means of preventing another person from communicating their ideas about abortion, for or against, wherever they like.
This amendment only applies to GPs, not to obstetricians or hospitals. Even though paragraph (b) of the Bill's definition of "relevant healthcare premises" does not use the term "relevant healthcare provider", this amendment should prove effective even for shared premises because paragraph (b) of that definition is effectively built on paragraph (a). The proposed provision uses the phrase "his or her" and this cannot reasonably be objected to and is very common in statutory provisions.
In a situation where two or more GPs practise at the same premises, and at least one of them does not want an opt-out, my interpretation of the amendment as I have worded it is that the opt-out would not take effect. The reason I interpret it that way is that if there is at least one GP at the premises who does not want an opt-out, then there is at least one "relevant healthcare provider" providing healthcare services at the premises, meaning the premises is a "relevant healthcare premises" within the meaning of the Bill.
This is quite a minimalist proposed amendment and I hope that would make it more palatable to the Minister and to other Senators who are not pro-life. It effectively allows a veto on opt-out where any person is a relevant healthcare provider in the premises in question.
However, because of what I have just said and because in some places there could possibly be another GP practice within 100 m, one could have situations where a particular GP would have opted out but his or her premises would still be in a so-called safe access zone. Therefore, the prohibitions would still apply, but because the GP who had opted out would not be a "relevant healthcare provider", he or she would not be protected by the current section 3(3) of the Bill, which might also protect pro-life doctors advising a woman against having an abortion, or at least protect them against being in breach of section 2(2).
On the other hand, I do not think the phrase "section of the public" should be interpreted as including just one individual, in this case a woman considering abortion, at least insofar as concerns private communication between a doctor and herself, so I am inclined to think section 3(3) is a largely redundant protection anyway.
The objections or questions about this amendment might be as follows: How are people to know whether or not a particular premises is a safe access zone if there can be these opt-outs? Would the opt-outs be publicised, and if so, how? Would publication of opt-outs require a specific provision in the Bill?
Of course, the promoters of this Bill do not seem to mind that, even without opt-outs, there is a huge difficulty with knowing whether or not one is in a safe access zone. The proposed amendment is less problematic than the Bill itself in that regard, because it would reduce the number of safe access zone areas and so, instead of people falling into the trap of unlawful conduct, as they could under the Bill, or at least be subject to a warning by a garda, it seems to me, moreover, that since commission of an offence under the Act depends on Garda intervention, it would be sufficient for the Minister to notify local Garda stations of the opt-outs, rather than wider publication, so that deals to large extent with the above mentioned likely objection or question.
Even better in that regard would be to change the wording of the proposed amendment to: "(other than a general practitioner who has provided a notification, to the superintendent of the Garda Síochána for the district in which the premises at which the practitioner provides healthcare services is situate, that he or she does not wish that premises to be deemed, for the purposes of this Act, to be a relevant healthcare premises)". I did not go for that because it is a bit wordy. I have been inclined to go for something quite minimalist but I put the House on notice that we might consider it at a later Stage, depending on how the debate goes.
In addition, at a political or psychological level there is something that does not sit well with GPs who want to opt out having to tell the Garda. It almost makes it seem as if such GPs are quasi-criminal, even though of course that is not what it would mean. I would like it if there was another opportunity to consider further the wording of the amendment on the opt-out issue, but it seems that any wording of such an amendment is likely to be rejected. I regret that. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say on it.
I think even many pro-life GPs might be concerned that an opt-out would draw unwanted attention to them from the Minister if it were the case that they had to notify the Garda. They might also be concerned about unwanted attention from pro-abortion groups and activists if the opt-out became publicly known. Although in my view, the Bill is very wrong, it does provide protection from pro-abortion pressure within the safe access zone as well, that is, pressure on doctors to provide abortions. I grant that is the case in regard to this Bill. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
Amendment No. 2 provides for the opt-out for general practitioners who do not wish their GP surgeries to automatically become a safe access zone by notifying the Minister for Health. We know that most GPs do not want to provide abortion and the majority are not offering abortions at the moment by exercising their right to conscientious objection. Therefore, I find the automatic inclusion in the Bill of all GPs, including those in clinics run by ardently pro-life doctors as safe access zones, to be bizarre and unfair. If we take for example a pro-life GP whose practice is in his or her own home or next door to his or her own home, under the current legislation, they would be in breach of the law if they were to put a pro-life sticker on their car or in their window. So if the supporters of this Bill were truly pro-choice, they would respect the right of doctors to opt out.
I will not be accepting these amendments. The core policy tenet is that we would not be highlighting specific service sites where termination of pregnancy services are provided. I would allow them to continue in relative anonymity. To accept this amendment would undermine that principle and therefore I am rejecting it.
I am not surprised the Minister is not engaging with it but it leaves the problem that there may very well be GPs providing, or not providing, abortions who are being used to stand up activism involving the pressurising of gardaí to pressurise decent people making a reasonable point. I have already been very critical of the cavalier approach being taken to freedom of expression in our democracy regarding what might happen on our third-level campuses. What we actually have is a lack of respect for people's essential tolerance. There are healthcare providers who do not want to see this legislation and think it is retrograde, unnecessary and violates principles of freedom of speech and expression. Again, there are no credible people telling us that this legislation is necessary. I regret very much that the Minister is not engaging with the amendments but I am not one bit surprised.
How stands the amendment?
I will withdraw it with a view to possibly bringing it forward, either in the same or another form, on Report Stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question put: "That section 1 stand part of the Bill."
Senators
Vótáil.
Will the Senators claiming a division please rise?
Senators Sharon Keogan and Rónán Mullen rose.
As fewer than five Members have risen I declare the question carried. In accordance with Standing Order 61 the names of the Senators dissenting will be recorded in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Seanad.
Question declared carried.
SECTION 2
Question put: "That section 2 stand part of the Bill."
Senators
Vótáil.
Will the Senators claiming a division please rise?
Senators Sharon Keogan and Rónán Mullen rose.
As fewer than five Members have risen I declare the question carried. In accordance with Standing Order 61 the names of the Senators dissenting will be recorded in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Seanad.
Question declared carried.
SECTION 3
Amendments Nos. 3, 4 and 7 are related and may be discussed together by agreement. Is that agreed? Agreed.
I move amendment No. 3:
In page 6, lines 10 and 11, to delete “within 100 metres of an entrance to either House of the Oireachtas”.
I welcome the Minister back. I want to reiterate, for the avoidance of doubt and given that this is an issue that can be contentious - as I said earlier on, it is a life-and-death issue - that though I have the harshest of criticism for the Government and for the Minister in the conduct of his duties and responsibilities in this area, none of it is directed personally. Sometimes it is necessary to say hard things, especially in a democracy, and especially when you think that people are wilfully engaging in a fundamental violation of authentic human rights. It is not personal but strong things have to be said in order to point out the injustices of what is going on here.
The two main injustices are that we are talking about a background context of legislation that operates with State support and funding, and the full apparatus and power of the State, backed up behind processes to terminate innocent children's lives. That matters, and it matters to an awful lot of people in this country. We cannot just treat this like it is a debate about water charges - or whatever issue - as important as that is. This is serious stuff that we all have to engage our brains, hearts and minds in. I have never denied that there are people of good will who sincerely differ from me and others on this issue.
It is possible to respect another human being while having no respect for the point of view that they are espousing. It is a hard saying but it is necessary because if something is really and truly unjust and wrong, you cannot mix up the issue of respect for the person and conflate that with respect for what they are saying and doing. There is a moment to show contempt, outrage, horror and disgust. Killing unborn children is one of those moments for an awful lot of people in this society. Those people are people, to my knowledge and in my long experience of advocacy around this issue, who care deeply about the welfare of both mothers and their unborn children. If anybody thought that this issue was going to go away in 2018, when repeal happened-----
Seanadóir-----
Okay, I will get on with the point.
As the time permitted for today's debate on Committee Stage of this Bill has been reached, the debate must now be adjourned in accordance with the order of the House today. I ask Senator Mullen to report progress.
I am not sure I would call it progress but I will report it anyway.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
Cuireadh an Seanad ar fionraí ar 5.45 p.m. agus cuireadh tús leis arís ar 6.01 p.m.
Sitting suspended at 5.45 p.m. and resumed at 6.01 p.m.