Mr. Martin Smith:

I want to talk through my experiences. What I remember from the day we lost Stephen is that it is the most proud I have been of Caroline, and of Stephen, when we found out he was a boy. We have three girls, and I have nothing against girls. I immediately went into dad mode. I had to protect everybody. I had the time off from work to be able to do that for everybody else.

It did not hit me until two years later. I have often said since then that, if someone had slipped me a card that read, "When it hits you, call this person", it would have helped me a lot. Féileacáin was fantastic for us. It gave us a memory box with a camera, teddies for our kids and footprint-taking materials. Caroline said she did not want anything, but I told her to take it because Féileacáin knew what it was doing. We all say we should have taken more pictures. Take the pictures when you can because you may never get a second chance.

Work was fine with me. I was in dad mode. I just went back and did what dads need to do. It became clearer to me as time went on. When we started helping Féileacáin out, we dropped someone else’s footprints up to Drogheda hospital. I cannot remember who the parents were, but I pulled the dad aside and said, “Everyone is going to ask you about your wife, which is fine, but take some time for yourself.” It is not that no one else would, but that is just the way society is. People always ask how the mother is. I had that interaction with him. A few years later, he turned up on the Féileacáin Fathers football team, which we set up in recent years. He looked at me and said: “I know you. You are the one who was with me in the hospital.” I never even recognised him. My few words helped him so much. Someone recognised his grief. He said he had done the same as me – he went back to his work as a barber and everyone kept coming in and asking how the mother was. He snapped at one of them. He was given some forewarning of it. It is just that grief affects everyone differently. People try to go back to normal. There is no normal after that, but they try to do their best.

One change I would recommend to the Bill would be to not have a time limit. We lost Stephen. He was not classified as a stillbirth. He was not classified as anything. We still have no certification for Stephen. He is not recognised by the State, so we would not have got any of this anyway. Why are limits being put on this? If you have a pregnancy that is verified by a medical practitioner, that is a pregnancy in your head. You have gone to college with your child. If you lose that child, you are going to feel the same grief. The bit I do not understand about any of this is why limits are being put on grief. If the limit is moved from 24 weeks to 23 weeks, what happens if it is 22 weeks, six days and 23 hours? He or she is no less of a child.

Grief affects everyone differently. There should be some provision – that is great – but there should not be time limits on it.