Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this matter but I do so with a genuinely heavy heart. I welcome all of the ladies and their families to Dáil Éireann but I wish their visit was under different circumstances.

Nothing in the year I have been a Member of this House has affected me as much as this matter. I have huge respect for the courage and bravery shown by the women we have had the privilege to meet in recent months but when we consider the suffering, pain and trauma they have been put through for practically their entire adult life and the effects of that trauma on their husbands, children and, in some cases their grandchildren, I am devastated by it. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain and suffering each of those ladies have gone through in the past 40 or 50 years.

I have a long speech but I will not read it out. I just want to say that for the vast majority of their lives these women have been hiding their hearts from the people who love them the most. The vast majority of the people in this country do not know what a symphysiotomy is, let alone what any of these women have experienced. The commitment we can give is to ensure that the respect and the redress they are entitled to will be their reward. They deserve to be given their lives back but that is not within our gift. I urge the Minister to give these ladies the justice they so richly deserve and to do so as speedily as possible.

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