Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the last speaker almost in the entirety, and I know that might be strange for me to do sometimes. It would be a travesty, having regard to the debate that has taken place in this country over the past year, in particular, both in the Citizens' Assembly and in the special committee, if it were to emerge at this stage that we were to frustrate what was intended by withdrawing the financial support. I note the case for competing demands. There are always competing demands in the health, housing and educational services. Having regard to the debate that took place, this demand is regarded by many in this country as a very serious demand. It is no harm to remember that if we were to say to people, "Well, okay, if you can afford to have all of these things done privately then that is your own business but for those of you who can't we are very sorry about that but you cannot avail of the services", it would apply even in the most extreme circumstances or in the case of Savita Halappanavar and similar cases. It would be a terrible tragedy if we were to allow ourselves to go down that road.

An opinion poll indicates that 44% of the people who voted "Yes" were opposed to public funding of the service. I do not know how it was intended to fund the service in the first place since the general impression was that we are going to have a universal service eventually. The idea was to protect the health and lives of women, and I mean the health leading to the lives of women. It was deemed necessary to do that, as a matter of some considerable urgency, and the people very overwhelmingly came forward to make their decision. I remind the House again that they made their decision on the basis of the information prevailing at the time - the information that was used by the committee and for the debates of the Citizens' Assembly - all of which was important.

It would be unconstitutional if we were to introduce an amendment that rendered the provisions of the legislation being proposed unavailable to a large sector of the female population. It would be morally wrong to go down that road. There are lots of competing demands but a woman whose life is in danger is a competing demand as well. One can say hard cases make bad law. I contend that a lack of law does not make for good cases or a good ending in such situations. I am strongly of the view that the people intended that the proposals would be funded in the normal way, as part of the health service. To strip part of that out at this stage and do otherwise would be a travesty.