Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have always said and I will say it again that I have nothing personal against the Minister at all. I have nothing but contempt, I am sorry to say, for the way he does his job, specifically on this issue. He is not in the service of truth or good healthcare. He has acted in a way that completely disregards. Privately he says he will meet anybody, but his only approach ever on this issue has been to meet with advocacy groups on abortion and he has refused to meet pro-life advocacy groups or experts. That shows at a minimum incompetence, certainly an element of arrogance in the Department's approach to this issue, a lack of respect for democracy, a lack of respect for the principles of inclusivity and a consultative approach, and all the things you would expect for normal business. Normal business does not apply when it comes to abortion advocacy because this Government, this Department and this Minister are in the hands of a very corrupt and tendentious agenda. If you needed proof of it, it was the Minister's promise to have a public consultation before the appointment of an independent person to conduct a three-year review of the abortion legislation. We got a denial and a rejection and a reneging on that promise because it was a closed appointment and the person who was appointed was not even independent but had skin in the game in terms of abortion advocacy. That shows the level of honesty - not - of this Government when it comes to dealing with this issue.

It is perfectly possible for me to say I have nothing personal against Deputy Stephen Donnelly but the way he has handled this issue has been a disaster. It has cost thousands of lives. We now have 10,000 abortions happening a year. That is a tragedy. It can only be described in terms of its being a holocaust. We have seen nothing like it in our country since the famine. He and the previous Minister for Health are responsible for that. We are in a very grave situation. When he says I lie by suggesting he has produced no evidence, he has produced no evidence.I put it to the Minister that a submission from the HSE is not evidence. The Minister can give me evidence that he has a submission from the HSE. Yes, he has evidence of a submission, but it is a submission that makes claims and which claims to have concerned doctors and nurses and he will not show any of it to us. This would not happen in any other area of medicine. It would not happen in any other Department, but this Government's approach is to obfuscate and, if necessary, to lie. We saw this in the run-up to the heavily defeated referendum proposals as well. A public consultation was carried out, and despite repeated requests, we never got the results of the public consultation until after the referendums had taken place. Those public consultations showed that nobody really wanted the referendums anyway except a few NGOs, but it did not suit the Government for that information to be known so it hid it. This is the way the Government goes on. It obfuscates and it denies. The HSE, for which the Minister has ultimate responsibility, cooked up a submission at the Minister's request and the Minister pretends that somehow it constitutes evidence. The Minister has not produced evidence and he has not quoted a single thing. The Minister has not quoted anybody except an advocacy group that is itself discredited, which has a highly tendentious approach and is in denial about all sorts of realities relating to termination of pregnancy services. The Minister can say as much as he likes - Borg-like - that he is telling the truth and that I am lying, but his inability to produce a shred of evidence when invited repeatedly to do so lays bare the moral and political bankruptcy of his position. The Minister can just smile glibly through it all and then turn to the Chair every now and again when he does not like what I am saying to ask whether or not I can say it, but it has to be said.

The Minister's handling of his brief in this area is an absolute disgrace and it is a tragedy. The Minister will not be viewed well in history. The Minister has a job for a few years as a Deputy and he is currently a Minister, which is great and I congratulate him and I wish him well in all his duties, but when I see him doing evil things in his brief I must call him out on that. This is an evil thing because it costs lives and it endangers people's safety. It endangers free speech and endangers freedom of expression, and it is the antithesis of democratic practice. I could be the Minister's best friend and meet him in a pub tonight but I would have to call him out on this. The Minister has to be called out on it because he is acting wrongly and in a way that is quite unprecedented.

Although he may seek to claim that he has produced evidence and that it is a lie for me to say otherwise, it is the Minister who is misleading the world in claiming he has some kind of evidence. The Minister has a document from the HSE and he has not quoted a single medical practitioner here today. On Committee Stage I quoted to the Minister - and will quote again now - that the Garda Commissioner made it clear some years ago there was no need for extra law. If I recall correctly, the Commissioner said the law was there in the Statute Book to deal with anything that would need to be dealt with if people were behaving inappropriately in the context of protests. We have no evidence of the Garda even moving people on, much less instigating a prosecution. We have no evidence, therefore, that those responsible for trying to keep the peace in our society, to protect the vulnerable and to secure good citizenship have any problem with the absence of this legislation. Then the Minister tries to claim this is about preventing people from being hurt and upset, but the Minister has nobody he can quote other than a pro-abortion advocacy group. The Minister tries to claim he has a document from the HSE that says this is needed. We know what goes on in Government and we know the way they order up reports and advice to suit their agenda. That is not evidence and it is not evidence of a kind that any reasonable voting citizen has the right to expect. I ask the Minister to please not insult our intelligence by suggesting he has evidence when he does not. I ask that he would not disrespect people by misleading them to the extent he is seeking to mislead them today.