Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is creating a legal quagmire that could potentially see people who do not want women to have the right to choose going in and out of court to challenge the construct of the national maternity hospital on the basis of this deal for the next 300 years. It is not that I do not trust anybody at all on the planet to do stuff. I absolutely trust the clinicians sitting here in front of me. I admire and totally trust the midwives, nurses and doctors. The problem is that we have weak abortion laws in this country that have allowed for conscientious objection to be used all over the place without giving women access to the rights they should have. I want to see a national health service in this country, as does the Minister because he signed up to it, which is freed from voluntary, charity and private medicine. That is where we have to go. We are certainly not going there with this hospital and this structure.