Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise today the ongoing restrictions in maternity hospitals. A number of Members have raised this, as have I. I am really not sure who is making the rules or what exactly is going on across the country because it appears to be a postcode lottery. We have varying degrees of restrictions, but it seems to be the general rule of thumb that a partner can now attend the anomaly scan but no scan before that; can attend for the birth of the baby but not for the active labour before that; and that there are limited restrictions afterwards. Let us be very clear: this is barbaric, it is cruel, it is unnecessary and it has to stop. We are 14 months into this pandemic and they still have not found a solution to make this happen. A partner is not a luxury at the birth of a baby. They are there for the physical and mental support of the mum, and they are also present for the birth of their child. It is an important point for them. We saw reports last week from the Psychological Society of Ireland that it now has evidence that this is directly impacting negatively on the mental health of women but also increasing anxiety among partners, who are sitting in parking lots waiting for that phone call so they can run up the stairs and hope to make it to the birthing suite on time. This is what is happening every hour of every day in hospitals. I went through this myself last year and I can attest to how traumatic and awful the situation is - to be in a position where one's partner is frogmarched out of the hospital and not allowed back in and one is heading into the birthing suite wondering if they will make it on time. Some people have not.

Yesterday, the HSE chief executive, Paul Reid, made a statement on the matter. To paraphrase his statement, he said that given the way things are with the pandemic right now, restrictions should be lifted entirely. Dr. Colm Henry said he is going to write to all maternity units to advise them of this and to ask them to remove restrictions, yet we know this morning that some hospitals are still reluctant to do this. Who is making the decision? Is it the Minister for Health or the chief executive or do hospitals do their own thing? Who do we listen to? Right now, it feels like we are not listening to women. Once again, we are ignoring the voices of women in the health service. It is not that we are not used to this, it has happened before on many issues, but it is 2021 and the women of Ireland deserve better from their health service. We in this House want to know what is the next step and when the restrictions will be lifted because they should be lifted immediately.

I wish to raise one more issue that is not as pressing. Thank you for your latitude on that particular topic, a Chathaoirligh. Sunday, 9 May is Europe Day. From my party's perspective, we are really proud of our history and our heritage, that we were the party that led this country into the European Union back in 1973, after a ten-year campaign. It was not something that happened overnight. It is important that on Europe Day, as an active and committed member state of the European Union, we celebrate that we are a member of the European Union and that we commit to its core values of democracy, human rights, transparency and espousing progressive and liberal values that the European Union pushes for and holds dear to itself.

As a member of Renew Europe, our sister party in the European Union, I thank my colleagues, Billy Kelleher MEP and Barry Andrews MEP, for their work within that party. It is a centre-ground party with progressive liberal ideas and will be joining with us on Sunday to celebrate Europe Day on behalf of Ireland, one of the key member states.