Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is very welcome, in particular as he is a Labour Party Minister. I am a representative of his sister Labour Party in Ireland and we are also a member of the PES in Europe. I thank him for his comments on the backstop and echo what colleagues have said about the most pressing nature of the backstop and the issues around Brexit as we count down the days until Britain is due to leave the EU.

I wish to focus on social developments in Malta. Many parallels have been drawn between our jurisdiction and that of Malta. We were very conscious when we passed the gender recognition legislation providing for transgender rights that Malta had very progressive legislation on transgender and intersex recognition. We had a lot of references to the process and legislation in Malta. We have also followed with interest the marriage equality debate. Marriage equality was legalised in 2017, a little more recently than we did in 2015.

My specific question relates to abortion law. Until last year Ireland and Malta were often linked as having the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe. Now that we have at last legalised abortion in Ireland, following our referendum last year, I am conscious that Malta is now the only country in the EU with an outright prohibition on abortion. Are any steps currently being taken to change the position in Malta, especially now that it is so exceptional within the EU? I speak as somebody who campaigned for many years for change in the law here from a pro-choice perspective. I know that many of us here are looking with interest at Malta. We still campaign for a change in the law in Northern Ireland, which retains a very restrictive abortion law since the British legislation was never extended to Northern Ireland. That is an anomaly in terms of Europe too. I wonder if there are any moves afoot to change the law in Malta. I am conscious that Ireland is now pushing for greater emphasis on sexual and reproductive rights funding at a development aid funding level. This is an issue not just for domestic policy but it is also an issue that is feeding into development aid programmes and into the UN programme, for example, and into policy-making at international level too.