Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Not for the first time, I am disappointed with the Minister's response. The problem is that the Minister does not address the core of the purpose of the proposed amendment. His latter point about those who might be distressed by any reasonable witness is the premise of the Bill. This Bill seeks to limit freedom of expression on the grounds that certain other people may profess to be offended, hurt or wounded by it. It is entirely possible to make clear, and this has been said on many occasions by Garda authorities, that in respect of any wrongdoing that arises in the context of these protests, and we are living in an era of protest and an era where there is a lot of debate about the extent and the way in which An Garda Síochána goes about prosecuting its tasks, the support it deserves and the necessary restraint it will also choose to show precisely because it respects people's right to protest, that the notion of people's right to protest or even to witness respectfully is completely absent from the spirit underlying this legislation. I will no doubt return to what has been said by Garda authorities during the course of our discussion about subsequent amendments. The Minister's additional point does not address the purpose of this amendment.

It is nonsensical for the Minister to present the whole policy objective of preventing the identification of any person who is in the position of providing the services at issue as justification for failing to provide for somebody who specifically wants to opt in and notify the Minister that he or she does not want in any way to be involved or used as an excuse for the curtailment of reasonable protest or witnessing. The idea is that we do not want any premises mentioned in the process, but what if the premises itself wants to mention or at least to break out from its own anonymity precisely because it does not want a situation where some officious bystander approaches nearby gardaí, who are busy enough trying to deal with many problems in our country, wants to create hassle or harass using the law two or three respectful respectable citizens who nonetheless have a deep conscientious concern about the breach of human rights going on at the heart of all of this and draws the attention of those gardaí to the fact there is a general practice within 80 m of where this protest is happening?The general practice in question might be among the great majority who are not opting in to the provision of this service and might fully agree that what is being protested against is not good medicine, should not happen, is damaging doctor-patient relationships and is undermining authentic healthcare in the country. The Minister does not even see fit to allow that such a general practitioner can say "not in my name" and put it clearly on the record that they are not to be used, invoked or instrumentalised in the prosecution of this new law, which we regard as unjust.

This goes to the heart of the complete failure of the Minister, the Government and the Department of Health to respect that there is a legitimate difference of opinion going on in this country around these controversial services, a difference of opinion between people who regard them as so-called healthcare and those who regard these termination of pregnancy services as the antithesis of good healthcare. The Minister, the Department and the Government will not even tolerate that somebody in medicine completely disagrees, wants to completely dissociate, and does not want in any way to be used in the prosecution of this legislation. The fact he or she may not be enabled shows the intolerance and the cancel culture that is at the heart of this Government's approach to all of these issues around termination of pregnancy services. As I have said before, the aim is not really to protect anybody here. If it was, we would have heard from the Garda, which would have said there is disturbance of the peace or harassment going on which it has been prosecuting. Not only has the Garda said there is nothing happening that requires new laws, but it has not had anything to enforce even in respect of the laws that exist. That shows the intolerance of this Government, that it is basically not out to protect anybody at all here. It is not out to protect people availing of termination of pregnancy services. It is out to cancel and to eliminate legitimate opposition and dissent to what is going on.

That is what has the Government, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Green Party and, let it be said, Sinn Féin and the parties on the left in the dock in the eyes of an increasing number of citizens of this country. We saw it in the result of the referendum. You want to control what people think and say in a manner that is not befitting of a democracy, in a matter that is entirely unconstitutional. The big woke trick is always to dress it up bogusly and dishonestly as some form of compassion, except in this case you cannot even produce evidence that anybody has been wronged. We all know the reality is there are actually very few protests. There is very little witnessing going on. That is because of the nature of this service. There are not designated clinics in the country providing this service so people who access healthcare in whatever setting do so quite anonymously as regards the healthcare they are accessing. Even when what they are accessing is not bona fide healthcare but a service that cannot be properly designated as healthcare because it ends an innocent human life, that is not something the person who might be witnessing outside or engaging in any kind of lawful protest can know and it is perfectly desirable that they should not know it. The whole aim of the witnessing that is going on is never to target any person. It is to target an unjust service. It is to further the conversation in our society about the injustice of this procedure. The only evidence the Minister was able to draw was not evidence at all. It was a letter from the HSE and it was the claims of an advocacy group that is not even supported by the local hospital in the place it was advocating. We have these claims that people are being harassed and unjustly treated but actually there is no evidence of it whatsoever. If there was evidence of it, we would know about it from the Garda.