Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has constantly said that he wants doctors to have absolute clarity. He said that during the campaign and he has said it here and then he rejects any reasonable amendments we have tabled. We might as well have addressed them all en bloc. It has been said that they are not necessary in primary legislation and that these matters can be dealt with by guidelines. That is a complete contradiction. The Minister keeps insisting that we give doctors clarity in primary law. It looks like he is only interested in clarity when it involves a proposal he is interested in.

As for what Deputy Durkan said today and yesterday about us hiring people in to draft the amendments rather than looking at them ourselves, we studied this and we also studied international comparisons. We do not need any lecture from Deputy Durkan. He needs a cooling off period for being so insulting to us as to suggest that we got the amendments written for us and that we did not know anything ourselves. We were involved. I sat through that quango as well. I will not call it a committee. It was so exploratory that one could not get a pro-life doctor. We do not need any lectures from Deputy Durkan.