Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left)
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I thank the representatives for coming before the committee. We are not in a position to ask very developed questions on the report but it certainly appears to be a very important and considered body of work which we will find useful and we will analyse it over the next while. The witnesses mentioned it is part of Amnesty's global campaign, My Body My Rights. Is Ireland the only European country featured in it? Presumably this reflects the fact that we are significantly out of kilter on this issue vis-à-visother European countries. Deputy Kelleher said it is a difficult issue to grapple with and it is, but everybody else seems to have managed it considerably better than we have. From Amnesty's point of view, was Ireland ever part of another international Amnesty campaign or is this the only issue on which Ireland has been singled out? If it is, I am not surprised, because it reflects Ireland's attitude to women. Would it be fair to say in terms of Amnesty's research into Ireland's abortion laws that it reflects a situation which the former Minister for Justice and Equality articulated very well when he said that our Constitution means not all citizens are equal and that as a result of the eighth amendment pregnant women have a qualified right to health and bodily integrity, a scenario which does not apply to men?

Ireland is now putting itself on the world stage as being the ambassador of equality, and correctly so, in terms of same-sex marriage, but in terms of health, half our population, or slightly more than that, are unequal in terms of health provision. Does Amnesty International's research vindicate that viewpoint?

We should move forward on all these issues. Everyone knows we must repeal the eighth amendment. Deputy Kelleher spoke about having a rational debate, but on the number of occasions we have had a debate on this issue in the Dáil during the lifetime of this Dáil, every Member from every party who spoke said that there is a problem with the eighth amendment. That, to me, must be our starting point. They may have very different views on what happens next but everyone is agreed on that point. I would challenge anyone to check the record on that and they will find that people said that something must be done about that. That is something on which we can all find commonality. Let us get rid of the eighth amendment because, clearly, we all agree it does not work. Would our guests agree that for us to be human rights complaint, we need to do that?

We should not have this conversation in a vacuum. We know that representatives of non-governmental organisations from Ireland are appearing before the UN Human Rights Committee. We should know that figures were published today which show that 3,735 women of Irish addresses travelled to Britain to access abortion last year. From our guests' findings and interviews with people, is it the case that the research leads them to believe that the consequence of the State's failure to provide access to safe abortion in Ireland does not change the Irish abortion rate, rather it just means, as was said, that we are outsourcing our human rights and health responsibilities, and to overcome that, we need not only to repeal the eighth amendment but also to provide for safe and legal abortion in all the circumstances they have outlined? In fairness, the majority of people in Ireland have repeatedly stated in opinion polls that they agree with that in all those circumstances. I do not see it as being a huge problem. Have our guests come across a similar scenario anywhere else where human rights and access to health care was outsourced in a similar fashion? It seems a peculiar abdication of the State's responsibility to put into the Constitution that people can access the health treatment of abortion but they cannot access it in Ireland and have to leave the country to access it. That seems a very peculiar set-up.

I would consider myself a feminist and would be pro-choice but it is fair to say that Amnesty International is not those things. I am not criticising our guests for that. It is a different type of organisation but its stance on this issue has been dictated not by those motivations but very much by an analysis of human rights concerns, international human rights standards, international standards in terms of citizens' rights to exercise health care and their rights to bodily integrity.

In terms of the issue of criminalisation, I believe it was Deputy Kelleher who mentioned that he hopes we could have a thorough scrutiny of any new legislation like we did for the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill. I sincerely hope it is dramatically better than that because that legislation criminalises people. From the viewpoint of Amnesty International's international human rights defenders or observers, is it the case that Amnesty International is saying that criminalisation is a violation of people's human rights in all circumstances? I think it is saying that and that certainly would be my view. I will leave it at that.