Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To take up the point that Senator O'Sullivan and indeed Deputy O'Brien made, Ms McDermott rightly spoke about compassion. She should have been shown an awful lot more compassion and support in her situation. However, there are women who desperately need compassion here at home, who passionately feel that they have to have a termination. We have had medical evidence, not from cheerleaders for the pro-choice side but from the Master of Holles Street and the Master of the Rotunda. These are people who look after our mothers and babies and feel just as passionately as Ms McDermott does and more so. The evidence they have given us is that they honestly believe from their experience that we need to allow for terminations in Ireland.

That does not square with Ms McDermott's point of view, and I get that. However, this committee has to make its judgments based on evidence. The evidence has been consistent. When we hear somebody like Professor Anthony McCarthy from the National Maternity Hospital describe a woman literally beating herself, beating her womb because she is so desperate to have a termination, I cannot understand the lack of compassion in that circumstance. To me, in that circumstance, I can fully understand why Professor McCarthy is so frustrated at having to say she has to go elsewhere, to England, and that he cannot even direct her to a hospital.