Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I point out to the Cathaoirleach I am responding to the Minister's points very directly here, because as I was saying, a person nearly lost their life. The reason this nearly happened is because it is not in any way required as part of the provision of abortion services that ultrasound would be offered. That amendment was tabled at the time of the abortion legislation. The party of which the Minister is a member was not in government in time, as far as I can recall. That amendment was rejected. I am sorry, the Minister's party was in a confidence and supply arrangement. That is what we have as a result of having a law that does not seek in any way to encourage the protection of human life by offering positive alternatives as a matter of public policy. Offering ultrasound might lead to a conclusion there is a human life there that needs to be protected. As I said, the absence of such ultrasound even endangers women, but such is the ideology around promoting abortion, that is not even to be tolerated.

I have pointed out previously there are some late-term abortions. There is a question about whether precautionary pain relief should be in play. There is a question about what happens when a baby is born in late term under the permitted procedures now in the legislation and left to die. Barbaric stuff is happening and it does not seem to trouble the Minister’s conscience and it does not seem to trouble his Government’s conscience. That is why I find the Minister's purported concern for people at the heart of all this to be so lacking. He refuses to face up to the reality of what is going on with abortions and he refuses to talk about abortion being regrettable and it being a desirable thing that we would reduce the number of abortions. We should have a policy that encourages women to keep their babies where crisis pregnancy occurs and to ensure they are offered all the necessary supports. None of that is part of public policy and the Minister should be honest enough to come out and say it.

As for the letter from the midwife he quoted, I have never, on the record of this House, denied there have been a small number of protests. The number of protests are, as I have said, small. They are small because we do not have direct abortion facilities. We have something worse, namely, the corruption of the entire medical profession by stitching in abortion as a healthcare service. As a result, there is the situation that somebody who is protesting against the provision of abortion in a healthcare facility has no way of knowing who is going to avail of that. They also have no way of knowing who is going in to provide that service. I did not deny what occurs and I would not. I wish there was more witnessing, because if there was positive witnessing, it might lead some people to avail of the help that is there, save the lives of unborn children and reduce the abortion regret that is there for many women who have had abortions. It would be a positive thing if there was more public witnessing to the value of every human life and the availability of support and love to those who are feeling very unaccompanied, unsupported and who may be rushing in to have an abortion. I have not denied there are people who witness occasionally, nor have I denied there is anybody at all who is upset by it or who resents it.

The language the Minister used was that of a midwife who accepted people were being peaceful and the phrase he used was “feeling intimidated and harassed”, but if he uses the criminal law to prevent other people’s peaceful freedom of expression on the basis that no more than one person somewhere might say they feel intimidated and harassed, then I cannot but conclude he has no respect for human freedom. If he can put the law on me because somebody says they feel intimidated and harassed by my peaceful behaviour that is not targeted at them personally, then he has shown his lack of commitment to democracy. I really think the Minister would serve in any regime, fascist or Chinese Communist Party. He will enforce any law if he tries to enforce this. He has no respect for democracy. He has no respect for fundamental freedoms. What he is doing on this issue is worthy of a fascist or a communist regime. That is the reality. That is why I talk about corruption. I advise any civil servant who is upset about this to try to get out of Stephen Donnelly’s Department because they should not be implicated in something like this. This is something people will look back on as a low point in our democracy. It is the point a Minister got on board with a small number of abortion activists to try to crush people’s peaceful and respectful desire to dissent from the provision of abortion in healthcare facilities. The person who would defend the criminal law being used to harass and prosecute peaceful people, as the Minister’s supposed midwife said, is saying the peaceful person can be put on the wrong side of the law because somebody else says they feel intimidated and harassed. I am not asking the Minister to put that person’s name on the record, but how do I know they are not an abortion activist? How do I know they do not feel in their own mind that they perhaps should not be doing this and they resent the peaceful witness to the injustice of abortion? We do not know any of this.

The Minister is happy to use the law to punish the peaceful person, but what is absolutely sickening is the way he tries to invoke gender wars to do it by talking about six men. I am surprised he was not ageist to boot and did not refer to six old men, because it would be worthy of the kind of argument he has produced here. It is a sickening attempt to mischaracterise people who want to witness to the dignity of every human life and he should be ashamed of it because there are also women who witness publicly to the injustice of what is going on in abortion facilities. There are women who have had abortions themselves who witness. There are women who have suffered as a result of abortions who witness publicly. There are women who have suffered publicly as a result of abortions and who felt unsupported at the time of their unexpected pregnancy. They in some cases may have felt coerced, judged or expected to have abortions because Ireland’s abortion facility, especially under the Minister’s current approach, which smiles on telemedical abortions that reduce the amount of contact people have directly with doctors, is also a cover for coercive abortions, as the Minister well knows and as has been pointed out to him. It is only being pointed out to him in the public forum by pro-life politicians and pro-life organisations because he will not meet them to hear their concerns. In that sense, he is not a democrat; that is the sad reality. I am not saying he is not a democrat at all, but he is clearly showing an undemocratic side to the way he does his job here and it does not reflect well on him.I feel sorry for any official who has to work for a Minister who does not respect the basic freedom of peaceful people to express their dissent on what is a life and death issue and who will set the law on them if somebody else says that he or she feels intimidated and harassed. One person's feelings, and we do not know who that person might be, will be enough to put the law on somebody else who the Minister admits is peaceful. He then tried to reduce the likeability of that person in the public mind by describing them as "six men". What contempt the Minister must have for his own sex, or is it gender, if he prefers to describe it as such. That is no way to make an argument. It does not matter whether it is a 17-year-old girl or a 68-year-old man who is witnessing peacefully and respectfully. The Minister should not in any way try to diss the person based on his or her age or gender, as he tried to do on the basis of gender or sex. That shows the games he plays. It shows the spin the Government engages in.

In the end, the Minister is siding with people who would happily restrict the peaceful expression of dissent. Insofar as he sides with that and uses his privileged, political, powerful position to do so, he is not being a democrat. He is no better on this legislation than if he were working as a minister or official in the Chinese communist party or a fascist regime because it is the hard left and the hard right that like to crush peaceful dissent and not democrats. He is not being a democrat with this legislation. He was warned about this and people pleaded with him. We tabled modest compromise amendments. We pointed out the flaws, the lack of evidence, the fact that the Garda said the legislation was not necessary, and the fact that hospitals in Limerick and Cork stated there was no problem here. We pointed out the Minister's ideology in pushing this legislation. He is on board with people and activists who want to crush dissent. That is not democratic, and he is not being a democrat with this legislation. To that degree, it is the low point of his ministerial career.

People will look back, when this legislation is eventually repealed, although I do not know when, and say, "My God. The woke reality that seized this Government, and even Stephen Donnelly's Ministry, was out to crush dissent and limit people's freedom of expression." It may be that what will happen is the legislation the Minister is creating, and God help gardaí, as if they do not have real problems to deal with, means he will no doubt hassle the Garda to try to enforce it to try to deal with a problem that does not exist. When the day comes that this legislation is repealed, people will look back on how the Government of the day, in what was a democratic country, sought to create legislation to crush what the Minister admitted here today was peaceful dissent. It is amazing that today he brandished a piece of evidence from an unnamed person, who complained about peaceful dissent and urged him to go ahead with legislation that would crush that peaceful dissent. How he could possibly think that anybody out to crush peaceful dissent in 2024 in Ireland, a democratic country, is on the right side of history is beyond me.

The Minister is a tool of the woke agenda. The woke agenda is out to pretend that those who are not-----