Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

In his contribution, Deputy Crawford accused me of acting with "undue haste". It is worth quoting something that was said in this House more than 30 years ago, after the publication of the FitzGerald report, which recommended the kind of approach that is now being adopted. The then Minister for Health, Brendan Corish, said that there could be "no more delays or equivocation" as it was not "medically feasible" to continue to do what the State was doing. Almost 40 years on, we are still having the same debate.

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