Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for his chairing of the past couple of days and his direction on breathing exercises, which have been most useful for some Members from time to time. I thank the clerk to the committee and his team for their support in preparing the past couple of days.

Following on from what Deputy Seamus Healy spoke about, that there have been three Private Members' Bills on this issue and the committee held three days of hearings in January. I would go further and say there have been six successive Governments which have spoken about this and which have done nothing. I, for one, am glad to be a member of the Government that has decided to legislate for this issue and it is incumbent upon us to ensure that happens now because we have talked and talked about it. We now need to see the Bill published on this important issue for so many women and to see it pass through both Houses of the Oireachtas.

There is only one issue which I want to bring to the attention of the Minister of State, namely, head 19 on the criminalisation of women. We have heard, most interestingly, from psychiatrists on both sides of the argument who agree that this is a difficult area, that they do not want to see criminalised women who may purport to take medication that would be, in essence, a medical abortion. The head is drafted broadly. Today Mr. Callanan even spoke about the fact that it is drafted so broadly that it could be interpreted that somebody who is advocating for a pro-choice regime could be liable to criminal sanctions. That is something that should not be part of the heads of the Bill. I would ask the Minister of State to bring that back to the Department and the drafters and that we would refocus our energies around head 19, taking reference and looking at the Criminal Law (Suicide) Act 1993 which similarly imposes a penalty of 14 years but does not criminalise the person who attempts suicide. We could use this as a basis for us having similar sanctions for those in relation to abortion.

I thank everybody. I thank my colleagues and fellow members of the committee for their contributions over the past number of days. As they say, it has been emotional.