Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are deep in this process now. In terms of Professor Arulkmaran's opening statement, it really depends on whatever question one asks. What I am asking here is what we are trying to achieve. If we are trying to achieve something that is politically palatable or palatable to the wider public who, for some reason, people within these Houses seem to think are not engaged in this process, then we are going down the right road in this committee. We are trying to deal with the issue of the almost 5,000 women travelling to the UK. I was on a flight home from the UK last week and as I walked up the aisle, I wondered who on the plane was travelling back.

What we should be trying to achieve at this committee is the provision of appropriate maternity care for the women of this country without fear of political consequences for our own careers. We should be doing our job as legislators and we need to be brave here.

We have listened to many experts in the past few weeks, including the witnesses before us today but we keep talking about women as if women are some sort of abstract concept. I am one of those women. When I present myself in the Coombe Hospital to have a baby, I have a reasonable expectation that I will come out the other side alive and that my children will not be left without me. Professor Boylan said that the maternity strategy does not have women at its centre. If women are not at the centre of the maternity strategy, as we discussed at the Committee on Health, then where are we going in this country? There is this idea that we cannot trust women in this country with their own medical decisions. I totally agree with the Professor that risk depends on where one is in one's life. If I am told at 42 - in a few years time - that I have a high-risk pregnancy, I am not going to risk not coming out the other side but if I was 42 and having my first child, that would be a completely different decision. As one of the witnesses said, the individual nuances of cases present grey areas. I think it was Professor Boylan who said that but I might be attributing it to the wrong person. This has been made clear to the committee and those who are ignoring it are just putting their heads in the sand. We cannot allow for every permutation of every gestational development, every kidney function, every liver function or heart function of every individual and come up with some sort of formula whereby we, in here, allow women to do X, Y or Z with their lives.

I am getting frustrated at this stage. We spoke about floodgates opening and I always find this humorous-----