Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is a danger of a slight misinterpretation of what we are talking about. Arguably the most important sections in the Bill - certainly the sections that people have been most concerned with or focused on - are sections 7, 8 and 9, which are the substantive sections. What they do, simply - I should not say "simply", as there is nothing simple about it - is to allow for procedures to occur in certain circumstances where there is an onerous test and so on, as we have discussed, but also, it restricts the places in which such procedures are permitted to take place to certain institutions. It simply says that it is only permissible for these procedures to happen at these institutions. People have gone off on a complete tangent talking about compulsion and lists. The legislation is just saying that it is permissible for the procedure to take place but it must take place in these institutions.

With regard to Deputy Kelleher's question on recruitment practices. Hospitals, like every other organisation, must abide by the law of the land in their recruitment procedures, including equality legislation. I have considerable doubt in my mind that a hospital could so order its affairs as to recruit people with certain views and exclude people with other views.