Jerry Cowley (Mayo, Independent)

No matter what the Minister says, there is a lack of capacity in the health service because of a lack of resources and not as a result of anything else.

We do not know the extent of this problem or how many people are coming at an advanced stage of pregnancy. It is not just non-nationals who are arriving in an advanced stage of pregnancy or without ante-natal care. In my surgery my wife, who is not medically qualified, has assisted in delivering two babies who could not make it as far as the hospital. People are always on the move now and these things happen when airlines carry people in the advanced stages of pregnancy, it is a fact of life in a modern nation.

There are problems when a woman arrives in hospital from an area infested with AIDS and who might have the disease and not have received ante-natal care. They present challenges for maternity units but this referendum is not the answer to those problems, the answer is to grant the resources that are needed to address the situation.

It is presumed that people are arriving to take advantage of citizenship opportunities. That might happen but the number involved is very small. If it is so small, why are we doing this? It is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, it makes no sense. It would have been more sensible to have passed the issue to the All-Party Committee on the Constitution. Why did that not happen, as would have happened with other matters related to the Constitution? That it did not fuels the existing cynicism.

How many women are coming here heavily pregnant and how many arrive in labour? At what stage of pregnancy are these women when they arrive? This is information we do not have. The figures the Minister provided are very global in nature. They fail to outline the exact situation. It appears we are dealing only with a couple of hundred people.

When a Government is not prepared to commit resources, it creates a smokescreen or commissions another report. I do not understand why a report was not commissioned to consider this matter in more detail before deciding to hold a referendum. Perhaps it is deliberate. The Government may not want to know the true figures as they would expose the whole farce. We should have learned from past referenda that amending the Constitution to address a possible abuse by a few hundred people is ludicrous to say the least.

We depend on non-national doctors and others. I implore the Government not to throw out the baby with the bath water which is exactly what we are doing. We have much more important things to do than to take away the cead míle fáilte from those who need our help as we needed help in former years. Our greatest export was once our people which is why we should not adopt this course. We should get real about this issue and postpone the referendum.

See this speech in context