Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Given the terrible circumstances surrounding the death of Savita, the Minister's response is grossly inadequate and utterly fails to acknowledge his responsibility and the responsibility of the Government to act to ensure there could be no question of a woman's life being threatened because she could not receive the medical treatment she needed because of the current legal situation in this country. The Minister seems to imply there is no impediment in law to a woman receiving necessary treatment in these circumstances, but there is. At the very least, it is a grey area and we know that in this case, a woman begged, in agony, for treatment that could have saved her life but was denied it because the medical practitioner believed it could not be done within the law. The Minister must act and must take responsibility.

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